Even after several years, the downplaying and denial of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences haven't ceased, pointed out a civil association called 'Real Victims' in anticipation of Friday's (6 March) Memorial Day for Victims of the Pandemic, which marks exactly six years since the first confirmed case of the disease in Slovakia.
"Six years have passed since the outbreak of the pandemic, which remains in the minds of many people as an unpleasant memory that they try to remember as little as possible. However, for the families affected, this chapter isn't over; they live with it every day," said Lenka Strakova of the association, emphasizing the need for objective reflection and evaluation of crisis management.
Strakova added that the pandemic affected virtually everyone living in Slovakia, and she pointed out that, in addition to those who died from the disease, other people also lost their lives as a result of an overburdened system and delayed or limited health care. She noted that the pandemic has also had a significant impact on children and the younger generation, who are still suffering its consequences today, including gaps in education, weakened social ties and ongoing mental-health issues.
"During the pandemic, families often heard insensitive comments and questioning, as if the deaths of their loved ones were merely the subject of online disputes. However, we know that behind every statistic there is a real person and a real story. And tens of thousands of graves in Slovakia are cruel proof that this was a trauma that changed the country," stated Strakova.
The date of March 6th was chosen as the memorial day because the first case of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, was confirmed in Slovakia on March 6th, 2020.
A 52-year-old man from Kostolišť near Malacky was infected. A month later, on April 6, 2020, the first two deaths from COVID-19 were confirmed in Slovakia. Since then, COVID has claimed the lives of more than 21,000 people in Slovakia.
The pandemic swept through Slovakia in three main waves. The first wave ran from March 2020 to June 2020. The second began in autumn 2020 and lasted until spring 2021. It brought the largest increase in the number of victims, approximately 12,000. The third wave, which lasted from autumn 2021 to spring 2022, was characterized by the sharpest increase in the number of cases - approximately 1.5 million.
The governments of Peter Pellegrini (March 2020), Igor Matovič (March 2020 - April 2021), Eduard Heger (April 2021 - May 2023) and, in the final phase, the caretaker government of Ľudovít Ódor (from May 2023) were confronted with the pandemic.
At the turn of October and November 2020, nationwide testing for COVID-19 was also carried out in Slovakia. A total of 3,625,332 people were tested. During the second round of widespread testing on November 7-8, 2,044,855 people were tested.
During Christmas on December 26, 2020, the first 10,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine arrived in Slovakia at the University Hospital in Nitra. The first to be vaccinated in the presence of the media was a doctor, an expert in tropical medicine, an infectologist Vladimír Krčméry, who was also a member of the permanent central crisis staff.
The state of emergency, which the Slovak government declared on March 11, 2020, effective the following day, ceased to apply on September 15, 2023.
In January 2024, the government of Robert Fico (Smer-SD) appointed Petr Kotlár, a member of the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic, as the plenipotentiary of the Slovak government for reviewing the process of governance and resource management during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID pandemic became the subject of a police investigation. The Office for the Fight against Organized Crime (ÚBOK) established an investigative team on October 21, 2024, to investigate the state's actions.
Source: TASR
