What to expect if you test positive for COVID-19?

You can find out a positive result either from your general practitioner (in case they have indicated you – the result will be reported to them by the laboratory) or from the staff of the local hygienic station responsible for your place of residence. You will receive the result by telephone or text message.

When you receive a positive result, you will be informed that you must remain in isolation (which means limiting contact with other people and staying at home).

The general practitioner will order you a 10 days quarantine and declare you as temporarily incapable for work. The work incapacity (so-called “neschopenka” in Czech) is issued from the date of the positive test. In the event that after the 10-day isolation you are at least three days without any symptoms, you are considered healthy and do not need to undergo any further testing. Your GP will then clear you for work. If your symptoms persist, contact your GP.

Search and monitoring of contacts

Smart quarantine (Chytrá karanténa) is a system that results in the early detection and effective testing of COVID-19 positive patients and isolation of as many potentially infected people as possible. Part of the Smart Quarantine is cooperation with the infected by providing a selection of contacts with whom you have been in high-risk contact in recent days.

Contact with another person is defined as a high-risk contact when you remain in a close mutual distance (up to 2 m) for at least 15 minutes without a face mask. Such contacts usually include members of your household, family members or relatives, co-workers, participants in camps, etc.

How does it work?

• A person who is identified as COVID-19 positive is contacted by the regional hygiene station to specify as many high-risk contacts in the last 5 days as possible.
• After providing official consent, the regional hygiene station will create a list of high-risk contacts, so-called “memory map” of the places where the infected person moved based on mobile data from operators. The list should include the name, surname and telephone number of the person concerned.
• After the infected person provides all high-risk contacts, they are informed and isolated in quarantine as quickly as possible.
• Subsequently, after 4-5 days these contacts in quarantine will receive a visit from a two-member sampling team, which takes a sample and ensures that it reaches the laboratory with free capacity so that the tested person is informed of the result as soon as possible (ideally within 48 hours).
• If the test is positive, the newly infected person goes through the same whole process (of course, subject to an official consent).

What to expect if you have been in high-risk contact with a person positive for Covid-19

You will be contacted by the local hygienic station according to your place of residence as part of the epidemiological inquiry based on the information obtained from a person who tested positive for COVID-19. You may not be contacted on the same day that the person you met is tested positive given that it might take some time to obtain a contact list and evaluate the risk (however, it is usually done the following day).

In any case, if you are aware of contact with a positive person (for example, if a friend notifies you before the hygienic station does), you should behave accordingly and avoid contacts with other people as a precaution.

You will also be informed that you have to undergo quarantine for 10 days from the high-risk contact with a positive person. You need to call your general practitioner who will issue the quarantine (and work incapability if needed) to you. There are no restrictions on family members and people sharing a household with you. In the case you have been in a high-risk contact but have suffered from COVID-19 in the past 90 days, you do not have the obligation to undergo quarantine.

After 5 – 7 days (but no later than the 10^th day) from the high-risk contact with this person, you need to undergo a COVID-19 test. For this purpose, you will be issued an electronic application in your name. To complete this application, the hygienic station employees will need to obtain additional information from you, such as place of residence or your birth number.

If your test is negative, you continue with the set quarantine and in the absence of clinical signs, the quarantine will be terminated by the general practitioner. If the first or second test is positive, you will be ordered to isolate for 10 days from the date of the positivity and proceed accordingly.