Considering the long incubation period of COVID-19, it's impossible to say that the mass testing in Slovakia (in some areas for three consecutive weekends) has significantly changed the course of the coronavirus outbreak, said Comenius University epidemiologist Alexandra Bražinová on Tuesday.
The fact that gradually lower positive rates were seen from round to round doesn't imply that the testing has improved the situation, according to Bražinová, adding that the decrease in positive numbers is rather the result of the restrictive measures adopted in October.
She pointed out that the number of COVID-19 hospital admissions is growing, as is the number of people on lung ventilation. "These are grave indicators that the situation remains critical," said Brazinova, who thinks that focusing on tracing and testing in hotspots of infection would be a better solution than mass testing.
Prime Minister Igor Matovič (OLANO) on Monday claimed that the number of infected people in the country fell by half between the countrywide testing a week ago and the mass testing in most of the country last weekend. Anticipating criticism, he said that "These [critics] are out to scare people away from the mass use of antigen testing, which we really need to slow the epidemic down."
