Border controls have been rescinded at border crossing stations and border crossing points on the Hungarian-Austrian and Hungarian-Slovak border sections, a staff member of the duty centre of the Operational Group responsible for the containment of the coronavirus epidemic announced at an online press conference held on Monday.
Police Lt. Colonel Róbert Kiss said, pursuant to the measure in effect from Friday, the police are only checking travellers within the territory of Hungary.
From among border crossing stations on the Hungarian-Slovenian border section, border controls remain in place at Rédics in international transit and passenger traffic, at the Tornyiszentmiklós-M70 motorway border crossing point in transit and passenger traffic, and at the Tornyiszentmiklós road border crossing station in passenger traffic.
The Lt. Colonel added that since 17 March more than 590,000 persons and 155,000 trucks have crossed the border in international transit traffic. Since 12 March, at the border crossing stations opened on the Hungarian-Austrian border section 1,040,000 crossings have been made. Sixty-seven thousand trucks have entered the country in international transit traffic.
On behalf of the Operational Group, Mr Kiss thanked the police and units of the defence forces taking part in the guarding of the borders for their exacting service.
The staff member of the duty centre of the Operational Group also highlighted that the government decree which allows German, Austrian, Czech and Slovak nationals as well as Hungarian nationals arriving from these countries to enter Hungary without having to retire to compulsory home quarantine has been in effect since Sunday. He added that all nationals of the European Economic Area who are entitled to permanent residence in Hungary and are able to verify this with a permanent residency card come under the same consideration as Hungarian nationals.
He said the number of persons registering for the mobile phone application that serves the electronic monitoring of compulsory home quarantine has risen to 2,309, with 798 active users at present. On Sunday, 555 compulsory home quarantine orders were issued, with 9,665 currently in effect.
He further mentioned that the number of criminal procedures instituted in connection with the epidemic had risen to 426, including 124 due to scaremongering, 29 due to the threat of public endangerment, 129 due to fraud and 22 due to the violation of disease control regulations. The police have questioned 80 suspects in total.
In answer to a question regarding the easing of the rules relating to village day celebrations, the Lt. Colonel said the Operational Group is continuously analysing and evaluating the latest epidemic data also during the second phase of the fight against the epidemic; the goal is to gradually lift restrictions according to a fixed schedule.
If the epidemic data indicates that further restrictions can be lifted, the Operational Group will adopt the necessary measures at the right time, he added.
(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister / MTI)
