Premier: My Stance Concerning Countrywide Testing Remains Unchanged

Bratislava, January 15 (TASR) – I haven’t changed my position regarding the form and method of countrywide testing, Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) said following the Government meeting held on Friday, adding that the final decision will be made on Saturday (January 16).

The premier believes that Saturday’s meeting will reach a mutually accepted solution. However, he refused to say whether he persuaded the ministers about his idea of countrywide testing, nor did he answer directly to the question of whether he would be willing to back down if the opinion prevailed to carry out testing only in districts hit most severely by the pandemic.

Matovic admitted that if the testing was really mass and covered the whole country, we’ll make it by the skin of our teeth regarding the number of tests. It’ll be necessary to buy more tests for potential additional rounds of testing. “We’ll decide tomorrow who’ll buy it,” he said about the meeting on Saturday.

The Government was supposed to deal with a proposal for state-wide testing in Slovakia, which was announced by the prime minister on Monday (January 11). However, his proposal was openly opposed by the Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, which supports testing in the most affected districts and regular testing in companies. The For the People party also advocates regular testing in companies and emphasises the need to expand the capacity of mobile sampling points.

Experts are also against countrywide testing as they see more risks than benefits in mass testing under the current weather conditions and also in connection with the presence of the more aggressive British virus mutation.