Mass-testing will most probably be voluntary

Mass-testing will most probably be voluntary

The mass-testing for the novel coronavirus planned for the first two weekends of November is likely to be voluntary, according to Prime Minister Igor Matovič, who was speaking at a press conference on Tuesday. He added that those who will neither attend the event nor will get tested on-demand at private labs will have to stay in quarantine for ten days. Criticism of the measure came quickly. "If 50% of the population doesn't come for testing, does that mean we leave people at home for two weeks? It's the same as telling people that if you don't want to go to work and want to be home for two weeks, don't go for testing," said Tibor Gregor, Executive Director of Klub 500, an association of the largest Slovak employers. In such a situation, according to him, there will be no one to fill the state budget and no money for health professionals or teachers.

Meanwhile Health Minister Marek Krajči has called on health professionals and students in their fifth or sixth year of medical school, as well as students of nursing and emergency medicine in their second year of study, to register to assist in the mass coronavirus testing. Slovakia needs some 20,000 such people for this purpose, Krajči told a news conference on Tuesday.

 

Anca Dragu, Photo:TASR

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