The eastern Slovak city of Košice and the western Slovak town of Púchov and the city of Nitra and neighbouring villages conducted mass testing of their populations for COVID-19 over the weekend. Collectively approximately 109,000 people were tested with 1.8% of them confirmed to be positive.
Between Friday-Sunday (January 8-10), more than 53,000 people were tested in Slovakia's second largest city Košice, out of whom almost 900 tested positive, which makes up for positivity at the level of 1.67%. A total of 95,558 people were tested in the district of Nitra over the same time period, with 2,329 of them or 2.44% confirmed to be positive. In Púchov, a total of 12,056 people were tested with 133 of them or 1.1% confirmed to be positive.
Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová said that the mass testing for COVID-19 in Nitra, Košice and Púchov is a necessary step in the right direction. Moreover, before it was carried out, she called on people to make use of the opportunity to get themselves tested. "I appreciate the activities of municipalities and districts in this unfavourable situation in which our towns and villages find themselves," Čaputová wrote on her social media profile. Moreover, the President warned that the virus must be battled against before all hospitals collapse and medical professionals are completely exhausted. "I thank every single person who has stood on the front line," she said.
