Istria County and its towns sent a letter to Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the presidents of the regions of Friuli Venezia Guilia and Veneto calling on them to introduce selective measures to enable free movement of people from neighbouring border regions.

The signatories to the letter say that many residents of Istria do business in Trieste and the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia and the northern Italian regions and travel there on a daily basis and that the current situation is greatly affecting their travel.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in Istria County the local authorities have acted promptly and taken the necessary epidemiological measures to contain the spread of the disease. The county COVID-19 response team was the first in Croatia to introduce restrictions, which has secured a safe health environment both for local residents and for tourists, the local authorities say in their letter.

They note that during the tourist season too, Istria showed that a good strategy results in a very peaceful and stable epidemiological situation, which, they say, they intend to maintain.

Acting county head Fabrizio Radin and Istria mayors note in their letter that according to the number of new infections in the number of persons tested for COVID-19, Istria County is considered an epidemiologically safe region, with less than 3% of positive cases in the total number of persons tested in the past week.