Monaco Announces New Precautionary Measures To Keep Safe Against Covid-19

Covid19, unfortunately, though initially having retreated, has not fully gone away. The Principality has been very vigilant and relatively blessed while much of the world is still suffering indifferent degrees with a resurge of infections. 

Living in Monaco has felt relatively secure health-wise; it has appeared that the virus has been almost completely beaten – and a new era here has started with a mass testing program so that we can be secure that nearly all residents and people working in Monaco are virus-free. 

Even a spike of new infections in Europe and the world aroundus has seemed far away.

Monaco Residents That Travel

But Monaco residents have continued to travel in planes and yachts – and some of these places they travel to are high risk.And so there has been a trickle of new infections in the Principality mainly due to risky foreign travel. 

Check out the zones that are listed and updated regularly on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) website. Best not to travel to the risky ones. 

“We do not recommend Monegasque residents to travel to these risk areas,” says Minister of Health Didier Gamerdinger in the most recent Government announcement. “Otherwise, if they dogo there anyway, we appeal to their civic sense to declarethemselves to our services on their return to be tested. The fight against Covid19 is based on this feeling of collective protection”.

Wearing Masks 

The government has made wearing masks mandatory when standing in queues, especially at bars and also at large venues such as the Herculis meet.

Wear a mask when in doubt, practice social distancing, and avoid travel to high-risk areas. That will help keep you healthy.

Tourists

Tourists who are coming to Monaco from zones with elevated rates of infection, including within Europe, and who stay in the Principality’s hotels , will be required to provide the results of a PCR test (nasal swab) that was taken within the last 72 hours. Or they will be tested in the hotels and placed in quarantine pending the results; the wait for results may take only about a day. That appears unlikely to deter guests from booking in. 

The same measures will apply to athletes who will arrive in the Principality sports events like the Herculis EBS meeting on 14th August.

Vaccines hoped for in the first quarter of 2021

The Minister confirmed several avenues for providing the Monegasque population with a vaccine as soon as it is validated by the health authorities: on July 10, the Principality officially joined the round table of the joint project led by the WHO and the ‘GAVI Vaccination Alliance; the Minister of State sent a letter to the French Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, in the framework of the Health Assistance Agreement between the two countries, so that Monaco is taken into account in the Astra Zeneca vaccine project supported by France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain; finally, the Principality is also interested in the American vaccine project developed by Moderna. The President of this laboratory has just been received in the Principality.

Health balance sheet in figures

– The last recent cases of Covid-19 in the Principality have generally been imported cases or non-residents. Their pathology was mild, from weak to asymptomatic, with rapid recovery.

– 38,209 residents, employees and schools were tested by TROD during massive screening campaigns. Today, city doctors, pharmacists and private nurses have taken over testing.

– 78 entities (shops, hotels, museums, etc.) have so far been labeled “Monaco Safe”.

– The reopening of nightclubs is not on the agenda at the moment.