Unofficial Translation
Press Conference after the Government meeting on the current epidemiological situation
Minister of Health Vladimír Lengvarský
Good afternoon to all. For introduction, let me present some information. Today at the government meeting, we have not adopted any new resolution, given that nothing is changing compared to last week in terms of division of districts or border situation. All districts will be green also during the next week and the border regime is not changing either.
I will now ask Mr. Mišík to present the epidemiological situation in more details. Thank you.
Head of IZA Matej Mišík
Good afternoon. As Minister already said, the epidemiological situation has not changed significantly compared to last week. We have the same number of 7-day average of new cases and the hospitalizations have even further decreased, as well as the number of ventilated patients. The dynamics of the epidemic are balanced in our country at the moment – the reproductive number is somewhere around 1.
This, however, does not apply in whole Europe. In some countries, the third wave is becoming more and more intensive, namely in terms of new cases. We see that the highest
number of cases is still recorded in Cyprus, UK, Netherlands, Spain, Malta, Portugal, Greece and Denmark. These countries also record the fastest rise in the new cases. At the same time, these are also some of the most common holiday destinations of Slovaks, so the risk of import of the disease is relatively high.
The share of vaccination with the first dose in Slovakia reaches the range from 26% to almost 60%, with the highest share in Bratislava districts. The share of fully vaccinated people is between 22%-53%. The situation in districts thus varies a lot and we see that the differences are deepening.
In terms of new potential wave of the pandemics, the vaccination share above the age of 50 is especially important. The full vaccination of this part of population is getting close to 70%
in Bratislava, however several districts are still below 50%.
Currently in Slovakia, there are around 840 000 persons above the age of 50, who are still lacking the protecton of the vaccination, so they can potentially easily get infected and have the serious course of disease. From the experience we already have from abroad, it seems that unvaccinated persons will, within several months to 1 year, get almost certainly infected.
To illustrate the effectiveness of vaccines, we looked at the data of three countries – Britain, Netherlands and Spain, which currently experience quite strong increase of cases. On left you can see the graph of hospitalizations per 1 million of inhabitants, and on right the graph with daily cases per 1 million of inhabitants. In case of Spain we see ten times fewer patients in the hospital than during the previous wave. Therefore, in these countries which have very high vaccination share of population above the age of 50, the higher number of new cases does not translate in high number of hospitalizations necessarily.
In these countries, such as UK, Netherlands or Spain, the vaccination of population above the age of 50 is almost absolute, at around 90%, whereas in Slovakia it reaches 50-60%, so the protection is much lower. That is also why we have worries about the third wave also in respect of potential growth of cases in hospitals.
As for Covid Automat, as Minister informed, all districts will remain in green colour also during the next week.
Thank you.
Questions:
Q: The commuters are today blocking the borders as form of protest against the border measures. Are you going to further communicate with them or will anything change in the measures or reimbursement of tests?
ML: So far, the agreement is that until 9 August the measures will not change, and then with the possible approving of new legislation in Parliament, together with the change of Covid Automat, some border rules might also change. But until 9 August, we do not plan to change any measures.
Q: Does this mean that after 9 August, commuters will have different rules or will the border measures change for all?
ML: This is still subject of discussions.
Q: You informed yesterday about the visit of Pope and that the allowed attendance will be significantly exceeded. The organizers of sport events or cultural events immidiately protested that they would also welcome such rules. Will the rules for the attendance change?
ML: This will be also related to the Legislation no 355 which will be discussed in Parliament on Friday, which will provide the legislative basis for allowing us to provide to vaccinated
persons greater possibilities to attend mass events. So if this legislation is approved, we can also change the Covid Automat. The sport organizers and other organizers will surely be satisfied if this is the case.
Q: Can you already list some possible rules – if it will be dependent on the size of the event site or if it will be some fixed number again?
ML: Both options are being considered – such as no limit for vaccinated persons, or some fixed limit multiple times higher than currently, but these are all just proposals.
Q: I would also like to ask about the validity of vaccination. Today we found out there are countries such as Croatia, which recognize the vaccination certificates only 180 days after the second vaccine. This period is already expiring for some of the vaccinated in Slovakia and we are not receiving the third dose of vaccine in Slovakia yet. What are the plans with the third dose?
ML: I heard this information for the first time today too, so I need to discuss this with the experts. When it comes to the third dose, it is quite certain that we will administer it, but it is not yet clear when this could happen. The company Pfizer has also not yet officially announced that it is necessary to administer the third dose, so we will follow the official conclusions of the producers of the vaccines.
Q: We currently recognize the validity of certificates after the vaccination for 1 year. Will this change somehow?
ML: We will follow the conclusions of the vaccine producers. Currently, we recognize these for a year, but we will follow the developments. It is quite likely that the third dose will be administered.
Q: We seen some predictions that the increase in numbers is expected in August already.
Will this be followed by tightening of the measures?
ML: We will follow the valid Covid Automat at that time.
Q: The decree states the validity of certificates for 12 months. Based on what was this validity decided?
ML: This was also based on the information we have received from the manufactures of the vaccines.
Q: We have around half million of Astra Zeneca vaccines in warehouses. I wanted to ask about the expiration date of these vaccines, as it is not possible to administer them as the first dose anymore and the interest in this vaccine is generally low. Will we keep these vaccines or we will also donate them?
ML: Based on government resolution, we have some commitment to donate certain amount of vaccines, so I suppose we will donate these vaccines too.
Q: In the full extent?
ML: According to COVAX we need to donate 1.2 million of vaccines. So even if we donated the full amount of Astra Zeneca that we have, it is still not sufficient in terms of the vaccines we have to donate. We will proceed in accordance with the expiration dates of these vaccines. Currently, we are looking for a partner to whom we could donate the vaccines, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Q: Protests at borders are the main topic of today. Should commuters count with the information that antigen tests will cost 5 Eur and some PCR tests will be covered?
ML: The discussions are not concluded yet. I suppose it should be those 5 Eur for antigen tests, but on the topic of PCR tests, there are still ongoing negotiations.
Q: Given that the meeting with Pope will be conditioned upon vaccination, do you consider also option of vaccinating in front of churches for example?
ML: I would not speculate about this so far, this idea was also considered, but I think citizens currently have sufficient other possibilities of vaccination. I do not exclude this option completely, but currently we are not going to implement it.
Q: Will the vaccination share in individual districts be incorporated into the Covid Automat system as one of the deciding factors when determining the color levels?
ML: This parametre is already included in the new Covid Automat.
Q: Will unvaccinated politicians get some exemptions for meeting with Pope?
ML: I do not see a reason for any such exemption.
Q: How will you enforce the new rules that you mentioned – conditioning the capacity of some operations or mass events upon the numbers of vaccinated people? Do not you think there will be problems with enforcing these in practise?
ML: The police will be responsible for enforcing the rules. The capacity limits will be determined according to the respective level in the given district, and the vaccinated persons will be allowed above this limit. So it does not mean that the unvaccinated persons will not be able to enter any operation.
Q: Are you also planning to ease the measures for some districts with higher share of vaccination?
ML: The vaccination rate of people aged 50+ should be decisive. In districts that reach this share above 50%, the measures should be more relaxed.
Q: Some countries are already lowering the age limit for vaccination of children. Would you consider something similar too?
ML: We will also follow the recommendations of vaccine manufacturers in this case. If they will recommend the vaccination of younger children, we will proceed with it.
Q: When could the new Covid Automat be presented? Is it already prepared or you will start only when the Parliament approves the legislation?
ML: It is already prepared, so we are only waiting for the approval of the mentioned legislation no 355. I today presented the proposal of the new covid automat also at the government meeting in short presentation and government agreed with it. So when the law is approved, we will finalize the new measures, including the issuing of the new decree of UVZ.
Q: Currently if somebody has positive antigen test, they can then go for the PCR test automatically to verify the result?
ML: Yes.
Q: Do you then correct this in the statistics somehow?
ML: Of course. If somebody has positive antigen test and goes for PCR test, we then use in the statistics only the PCR result.
