Stefanovic: Two quarantine sites for Serbians returning home

He said that people who have no place to self-isolate themselves will be taken to one of two quarantine sites which have been set up in the north and south of the country. “We can’t prevent people from returning to Serbia but we can appeal to them. The healthiest thing for them is to remain in self-isolation wherever they are,” he said.

The Minister said that anyone caught violating the overnight curfew (8:00 pm to 5:00 am) would face criminal charges.  

Stefanovic told the pro-government TV Pink on Wednesday morning that the curfew is intended to protect lives because “people have the most social contacts in cafés, restaurants and during walks” after 8:00 pm. According to him, the police will constantly check people who have been ordered into isolation and expressed the hope that the measure will not be in force for a long time. “Those people have to understand the extent of the damage they are inflicting on their country by leaving the place where they are in self-isolation,” he said, adding that this is important to give the health care system time in the face of the peaking crisis.  

The minister claimed that almost 50,000 people had entered the country since the coronavirus crisis began, allegedly most of them from Italy with some failing to follow isolation orders which he said caused the spread of the infection.  

Stefanovic also called the public and media to stop what he said is the “conscious spreading of lies aimed at helping, in a political sense, the people who spread them or the owners of their media”, claiming that the nova.rs portal had published a news item which allegedly turned out to be false.