Bar and restaurant entry in Montenegro will as of midnight Friday be possible only with a negative PCR test, a fast antigen test or a certificate of recovery from Covid-19 in the last six months, the country’s health authorities said on Friday.

The same conditions will apply to night clubs and discos, whether indoor or outdoor, and all employees in hospitality establishments will have to meet one of them.

Montenegro last week banned the work of night clubs after a surge in the number of coronavirus infections. The country has been registering close to 150 new cases per day in the last three days, of which an average 10% are tourists.

There are around 1,100 active cases, of which one third are in Budva, which is called Montenegro’s tourism capital.

The country’s borders have been open to tourists from both the EU and East European markets since the start of the year, with figures on arrivals exceeding the government’s expectations.

The presence of the new, Delta coronavirus variant has still not been confirmed but the health authorities believe it is present and are waiting for the results of samples sent abroad for analysis.

Montenegro has so far vaccinated around 37% of the adult population. Of close to 10,000 infections since 1 April, 98% were not vaccinated with both doses while 770 got infected between the first and the second dose.

At the start of the year Montenegro was among European countries with the largest number of active cases and new infections. In early March the country’s health authorities introduced epidemiological restrictions that were in force for five weeks, which yielded results. In mid-April the easing of the restrictions started and they were fully liberalized at the start of the tourist season.