Curfew extended from Saturday to Monday; 3 new government measures; Russian aid and doctors coming

President Aleksandar Vucic announced late on Thursday, after a meeting of the Crisis HQ, that the Serbian had government introduced three new measures with the goal of curbing the spread of the coronavirus epidemic in Serbia.

Two measures, he said, would be more stringent while one would relax the existing rules.

"A ban on movement is introduced from Saturday at 1 pm that will run until 5 am on Monday. The weekends caused us the biggest problems. That ban does not apply to pensioners who can still go to the store from 5 to 7 in the morning (on Sunday) because we want to motivate them to stay at home. The risk to them is by far the greatest," said Vucic.

The second measure concerns public gatherings.

"No more than two people can gather in one place starting tonight. This is what the government is adopting tonight, and this above all concerns people taking their pets for a walk, so they don't form groups."

"The last measure is introduced starting from Saturday evening, which is that from 11 pm to until 1 an on Sunday, within the range of 200 meters from the place of residence, pets can be walked," Vucic said of the third measure, which was the pet owners' appeal who said their dogs can't stand to be indoors for a full 13 hours.

According to Vucic, in the past few days, a greater percentage of positive cases has been observed in Serbia related to those tested, because mostly people with symptoms are coming forward especially from four municipalities - Belgrade, Cuprija, Cacak and Valjevo.

"Nis, after many difficult cases, especially after the whole story with (a woman from) Lugano, somehow managed to stabilize itself. We sent equipment and doctors to Cuprija, two days ago to Valjevo. We are waiting to see how we can help Cacak," he said.

He also said that assistance was coming from Russia.

"Tomorrow the first plane with equipment and 8 doctors will come from Russia - with its equipment, ventilators, medicines, disinfectants. They arrive on Friday at 11 o'clock, we will receive the same package as has Italy. They care about us and we feel special gratitude to Russia," he said.

(Telegraf.rs)