Rules, dates of school-leaving exams unchanged

The government expects both written and oral exams to take place in the usual manner, with a deadline for applications for school-leaving exams and university admissions of Feb. 15, Zoltan Maruzsa, the state secretary for public education, said at a press conference of the operative body responsible for handling the coronavirus epidemic.

Last year, some 80,000 students sat their school-leaving exams in the spring and an additional 30,000 in the autumn, Maruzsa said, adding that this showed that the exams could be organised safely, even during a pandemic. No infection hotspots emerged as a result, he added.

Meanwhile, Cecilia Muller, the chief medical officer, said Hungary has received vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna sufficient to inoculate 51,000 people. The Pfizer ampoules have been “significantly overfilled”, and so allow for the vaccination of six people rather than five as originally expected, she said.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Kiss, a leader of the operative board, noted that Serbia expanded travel restrictions at its borders on Tuesday. Entrants will continue to have to show a negative PCR test result from the previous two days, or self-quarantine for 10 days, he said. The restrictions pertain to all travellers, regardless of citizenship, he added.