Dear clients,

For several hours (with effect from midnight today - 25th September 2020, 00:00), is effective another new extraordinary measure issued by the Ministry of Health:

changes in the field of isolation, quarantine measures and testing of persons in the context of COVID-19 (full text here)

This extraordinary measure abolishes the extraordinary measure from 24th September 2020, about which we informed you here.

Newly established obligations:

• for persons who have been found to be in close contact with a positively tested person, a 10-day quarantine measure is still ordered, but the first test will be performed on days 5 to 7 (instead of 1 to day) from the last contact with a positively tested person, but no later than 10 days. In the case of a negative test and the absence of clinical signs, the quarantine measure is terminated after 10 days, without the need to undergo a second test;

• if clinical signs appear at a person ordered quarantine measures, it is mandatory to get tested. Where only medical surveillance has been ordered by the quarantine measure, surveillance shall be changed to quarantine;

• another change is a milder approach to people with contact with a positively tested person, who failed to be tested within 10 days of this contact. Such a person without clinical signs shall automatically terminate the quarantine measure 14 days after the last contact with a positively tested person;

• the information we have informed you about here remains unchanged.

Furthermore, today at its morning meeting, the government approved a propose bill concerning the so-called Kurzarbeit, which currently has the following form:

• the activation will be decided by Government Regulation - can only be activated for a particular region / industry;

• activation can be done only in case of serious threat to the economy, natural disaster or cyber-attack - it falls on the situation when the employee will not come to work due to lack of work / inability to work for these reasons - the so-called “partial employment” should cover current obstacles at work according to § 207-209 of the Labor Code (it is therefore wider than partial unemployment according to § 209 of the Labor Code, but also includes downtime and other obstacles on the part of the employer);

• Kurzarbeit will be provided only for employees in an indefinite period, who have been working for the employer for at least 3 months;

• the employer will pay the employee wages for the hours worked and the state will replace 70 % of the employee's net wages for the hours not worked within the course of the exchange rate (up to the national average wage);

• the employer will pay this support received to the employees and at the same time will not be obliged to provide the employee with additional compensation for this unspent time;

• the contribution will not cover compulsory social and health insurance contributions;

• the maximum period of support is one year - with conditions:

-  the employer does not assign employees work in the range of at least 20 % and at most 80 % of their weekly working hours allocated according to § 84 of the Labor Code for the relevant calendar month (this condition is assessed collectively for all employees of this employer) - in the event that only a certain part of the activity is restricted, no entitlement to a Kurzarbeit arises;

-  the specific employee works at least 20 % of the weekly working hours allocated according to § 84 of the Labor Code for the relevant calendar month;

• employers will submit reports for the payment of contributions no later than the 10th day of the following calendar month.

However, the proposal must pass the Parliament of the Czech Republic, where it may still undergo significant changes. We will inform you about its discussion.

Should you have any queries about the above-mentioned, we, of course, remain available for you.