The corona test obligation for visitors to hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities in Bavaria will be simplified for the Christmas season. From December 23 to January 9, tests from one of these facilities should also apply to others if they are not older than 24 hours, the Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday morning. This applies to on-site testing as well as supervised on-site self-testing.
“In this way we relieve the facilities, their employees and the visitors,” said Health Minister Klaus Holetschek. “That makes sense during the Christmas season, when a high number of visitors to the facilities meets a tense staffing situation in many places.” The regulation would save time and resources: “According to the motto: tested once, used many times.”
In the event of bottlenecks in staff or test capacities, visitors can also exceptionally carry out a self-test without supervision, as the ministry further explains. However, this cannot be used in other facilities. In addition, Holetschek wants the local test centers to “provide suitable opening times on Christmas days in order to enable visitors, in particular from care facilities and hospitals, to be tested”.