In Slovakia, two-thirds of the country’s 5.4 million people were tested for Covid-19 over the weekend, officials said on Monday.
Antigen tests have been performed on 3.625 million people, of whom 38,359 or 1.06% were infected with the new coronavirus.
“We have made a big leap forward,” Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovič told reporters. “But we shouldn’t think that because of this one percent, everything is fine now. It’s not.”
“In reality, up to 2% of our population can be infected. This is not a good situation at all,” Matovich said.
Antigen tests give results much faster than tests that take samples from the nose and throat and send them to the laboratory, but they are less reliable.
The tests are scheduled to continue next weekend.
Slovakia has decided to check all residents over the age of ten.
Tests are not mandatory, but individuals who will not be able to produce a negative test result if stopped by the police may be subject to fines.
Persons who test positive must be quarantined for the next ten days.
Smaller countries, such as Luxembourg, have already tested the whole population. Several Chinese cities with a population in excess of Slovakia have also tested the entire population.
The Slovak government has suggested that, after testing the whole population, the restrictions imposed in the fight against the pandemic could be relaxed or, on the contrary, the restrictions could be tightened if the testing program is not fully implemented.
As in other countries, the number of Covid-19 cases in Slovakia has risen sharply in recent weeks.
Today, Slovakia reported 1,883 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections to 61,829.
In Slovakia, 219 Covid-19 patients have died since the start of the pandemic.
However, Slovakia’s mass testing program has been criticized for its shortcomings, including the high concentration of people at test points.
–
