Coronavirus Slovakia: Half of the population examined on Saturday / How many infected with coronavirus were discovered – Coronavirus

Nearly half of Slovakia’s population was tested for Covid-19 on Saturday, the first day of nationwide testing in which the government wants to reverse the growing trend without a blanket quarantine, Reuters reports.

The testing campaign, the first in a country of this size, is viewed with interest by other nations seeking ways to slow the spread of the coronavirus and protect healthcare systems.

Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said 2.58 million Slovaks were tested on Saturday and 25,850 (1%) tested positive, meaning they are in quarantine.

This country has a population of 5.5 million people and wants to test as many as possible, except for children under the age of 10.

More than 40,000 doctors, soldiers, police officers, officials and volunteers were recruited from the 5,000 points where antigen tests are administered.

The test is free and voluntary, but those who do not participate must be quarantined.

Slovakia had only a few thousand cases in the spring and summer, after quickly imposing restrictions. But the number of infections has skyrocketed in recent weeks, with concerns that the country will end up as neighboring Czech Republic, which has the highest death rate in Europe in two weeks.

This weekend’s campaign was criticized by some experts, who said it didn’t make sense to do it just once or pointed out that antigen tests were less accurate than those done in the lab, meaning they give more false-positive results or false negatives.

The government plans to hold a new round next weekend to discover the cases lost in the first round or those that have been infected in the meantime.

On Sunday, Slovakia reported 2,282 new cases, revealed by PCR tests, totaling 59,946, without those identified through the national campaign. So far, 219 deaths have been attributed to the pandemic.

Prime Minister Igor Matovic said this week that the move would save “hundreds of lives.”

“This will be our path to freedom,” Matovic insisted, suggesting that restrictions on the pandemic could be relaxed after testing is complete or strengthened if the program is not fully implemented.

“We have a great opportunity to show Europe and the world that things can be done differently, without shutting down the economy and without leaving millions of people out of work,” he was quoted as saying on the eve of the test campaign. , quoted by the Slovak news agency TASR.