Unofficial Translation
Press Conference on the current epidemiological situation 30 March 2021
Minister Eduard Heger
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. This is a very important week and I will start with words
“thank you” and “please”. Thank you for following all the measures so this week we can announce good news again – in terms of decrease in number of positive cases. However, we are still stuck above the magical line of 3000 hospitalized patients and that is why it is important to keep our patience and keep following the measures. That is why the second word is “please”. Please, let’s be very careful, namely this week, during the Easter. I believe we will be able to defeat the pandemic after this week already. We have numbers to be present that I believe will please you, but I hope we will keep being responsible and we will continue the fight until the successful end. If we would get a little comfort during this week, we can get very far away from our target. On the other hand, if we will continue for little longer, we can get to our goal pretty soon. Thank you very much and I am giving floor to my colleagues.
State Secretary Stachura
Ladies and gentlemen, let me inform you about the current epidemiological situation. What the Minister already said can be observed in this graph showing the comparison with our neighbors. Slovakia, together with the Czech Republic, continues to show a decreasing tendency, and our antigen and PCR test both confirm this trend. Unfortunately, not all countries show such trends and some register the increase in numbers.
All the indicators that we are regularly monitoring confirm this positive trend just before the Easter holidays. I would mainly highlight the reproductive number, which has reached a pretty good level, as well as the 14-day incidence of PCR and antigen tests, which continues to show
a decreasing trend. I am also very happy to see the decreasing trend in the hospitalizations and especially, and finally, the number of patients on the artificial lung ventilation.
This is also a very important graph to predict how the situation in hospitals will further evolve – it shows the number of visits of the emergency medical services to the Covid patients. We also see very good news here, as in recent period we register a clear decreasing trend in this number, confirmed over several weeks.
We can confirm this trend across the whole Slovakia, which is also very positive news. Our hospitals see this trend as well, as they register less patients.
However, as the Minister mentioned, we still are not at the end of this fight. We still have the beds with the artificial lung ventilation occupied at the level of 85%, which is a very high number, although as you might remember last week it was over 90%, so the decreasing trend is also confirmed here. We have also managed to reach the number below 3000 of patients hospitalized with primary disease of Covid-19 – specifically 2980 patients, but to this number we still need to add the number of patients with the Covid-19 as the secondary disease, so we are still above the level of 3000 hospitalizations. But the overall trend is very positive.
I will now give floor to my colleague to comment on vaccination.
State Secretary Ježíková
Thank you very much. I will also present some good news from the vaccination process. We see a very positive trend in deliveries of vaccines, higher vaccination capacities and more and more vaccinated persons every week. This table shows the currently used vaccines that have been delivered to Slovakia so far and also the deliveries expected until the end of April. These are very positive numbers – 347 000 for Pfizer, 70 000 for Moderna and 320 000 for AstraZeneca. This week we expect to receive 120 000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines, after two weaker weeks, when we received only 12 000 doses. We are thus fully starting the vaccination in all high-capacity vaccination centers established by the self-governing regions. Their weekly capacity that has been until now 45 000 doses/week, has been expanded to 60 000 doses/week, which is caused by the increased delivery of AstraZeneca vaccines. When it comes Pfizer, this week we received 55 000 doses, and from next week it looks that every week in April we will receive around 73 000 doses. So, we will vaccinate around 15 000 people daily by Pfizer. When it comes to Moderna, there we are at the capacity of 2000 doses weekly.
Interesting information is that during Easter weekend we expect that we will have 1 million doses of vaccines administered. In Slovakia, so far 12.5% of population has been vaccinated, from which 4.7% of population already received the second dose of vaccine.
This is also a standard graph that you know. You see the number of administered doses is getting close to one million. When it comes to distribution in individual regions – this graph is made to show the % of vaccinated related to the adult population, so people 18+ only. So, Bratislava region has more than 20% of this population vaccinated, and Prešov and Košice regions are also doing very well. Other regions opened their large capacity centers a little bit later, so they are still catching up.
Here the first graph shows the cumulatively administered vaccines – you see the green color has been used the most and it presents the Pfizer vaccine. AstraZeneca is represented by blue color and Moderna by red color. The second graph shows the daily administered vaccines, and here you see the blue peaks, which are caused by the fact that AstraZeneca vaccine is used mostly during weekend in large capacity centers.
Good news is also that the percentage of vaccinated in social service facilities has increased from 60% to 70% this week. In these facilities, 39% people have already received the second
dose. Košice region which has been doing worse last week is also catching up. We have good cooperation with self-governing regions which are helping us with the vaccination of these people.
Thank you very much.
State Secretary Stachura
I will now comment on Covid Automat. We are still, as whole Slovakia, located in black color and this is because, as we mentioned, the number of hospitalizations is still above 3000.
However, as I mentioned, the number of hospitalization of patients with Covid-19 as primary diagnosis has already decreased below 3000, so we expect that in upcoming days or weeks, we will manage to cross this magical level. When it comes to other indicators – the number of new cases and reproductive number – these already show more positive trends. According to the parameter of new positive cases, we would be in dark red color already. The reproductive number even reached a level that would allow us to put the country into green color. So to sum up, we are waiting to cross the line and go below the level of 3000 hospitalizations in order to move to different color.
As for the distinction of the districts, we can see that the number of black districts is decreasing and the green dots represent the improvement in the color in districts compared to last week.
Here is the list of the districts in different color zones. We already have 17 districts in Slovakia that are in the II. level of warning.
I will now give floor back to the Minister.
Minister Heger
Thank you very much. As you have seen we are well equipped for the final fight during the Easter holidays. Last weeks show that people are responsible and their efforts are worth it.
The Council of Experts has prepared 10 recommendations for the Easter holidays, and if I was to sum them up, it is important not to forget the respirator in interiors and mask in exteriors.
This is our best weapon. It works well only if we have it rightly on, both on mouth and nose.
We thus want to ask you to not to forget to wear the mask in exteriors as well, if you meet your neighbors on the street and want to exchange few words with them. Wear it to cover both nose and mouth. Not even the best test can guarantee you not to be infected at time other than during the time of taking the test. It is also important to skip the visits during the Easter, as well as any travelling. The rules are set in a way to restrict any traveling through districts and it will be controlled as well.
I want to address one more topic and that is the extension of the state of emergency, as it might seem to many that we do not need it anymore with the improving situation. However, it is still very important to extend it. We need the state of emergency to keep the positive trend in our epidemiological situation, due to all the measures that are linked to the state of emergency. These measures are extremely important in the fight against the virus. When the state of emergency was taken in September, we were in 10 times better situation than we are now.
Without the state of emergency, the health care would collapse. Without the state of emergency, the mobilization of healthcare work forces would end. Without state of emergency, 5500 reprofiled beds for Covid-19 patients would cease to exist. Without state of emergency, the economy mobilization would end, and thus the serious economic damages would threaten.
If we look at the state of emergency in hospitals, we see that we have over 3000 covid patients in hospitals. We need to realize that the number of standard beds at the infectious wards is around 400. It is not possible to fit 3000 people to 400 beds. Thanks to state of emergency we were able to ensure around 5000 reprofiled beds for these patients. Although the number of hospitalizations is finally decreasing, this does not mean that we do not need the beds for the current patients.
The so-called work orders also exist in SR. These work orders help to district offices to strengthen the capacities in hospitals and social service facilities for the fight against pandemic.
The state of emergency also helps in the economy mobilization. Within such mobilization, around 330 orders of the Minister of Health were issued. These relate to finances, vaccination, reprofilization of beds, sequencing of samples and storage. You might not see these processes, but they work to protect your lives and health.
The state of emergency also makes it possible to procure emergency stocks, such as respirators, gloves or protective clothing.
Thanks to the state of emergency, the Ministry of Labor also issued 1,500 decisions on the designation of social services facilities as subjects of economic mobilization. We can thus stabilize the personnel, ensure the staffing, and functioning of these facilities.
If we did not extend the state of emergency, all of these would not be possible. We will negotiate this with deputies and provide them with even more details data, but I also wanted to inform you, the citizens of SR, about why we need to extend the state of emergency. Thank you very much.
Chief Hygienist Mikas:
Ladies and gentlemen, after weeks when we appeared in the first rankings in the number of deaths of our people, we finally see some improvement in the epidemiological situation.
However, we need to keep being careful. This Easter can either help us in these efforts or harm us. If people will be responsible and follow the rules, I think we have possibility to continue in these good trends and to win this fight against the pandemic.
I sent the request to the media today to ask people to be patient and to endure the compliance with the measures. I was leading the Pandemic Commission today, and it agrees fully with all the recommendations of the Council of Experts. We also discussed the possibility of making the testing strategy more effective, and possibility to control the measures that are currently in force better. I suppose the Pandemic Commission will also have a meeting after the Easter and then it might be able to already present the details of the testing strategy, given that testing remains to be, together with vaccination, one of the significant weapons against the pandemics.
Questions:
Q: What will happen if the Constitutional Court issues a decision that the extension of the state of emergency was not in accordance to the Constitution?
MH: I suppose that such verdict will not be issued. If any verdict comes, I expect it will amend certain provisions related to state of emergency. Of course, we will respect the decision of the Constitutional Court.
Q: Do you have any plan B?
MH: If the Constitutional Court decides that some parts of the decrees of the Chief Hygienist need to be changed, the UVZ will address this, if the resolution of the government will need to change we will hold a government meeting.
Q: You mentioned that Pfizer will increase its deliveries in upcoming weeks. Are you planning to change the vaccination strategy when it comes to chronic patients?
SSJ: When it comes to the waiting room registration, we currently already opened it for registration for 50+. When we did analyses few weeks ago, the age category 50+ was supposed to come only in the end of April according to our estimations. The interest of people is slightly lower than we expected so we are vaccinating little bit faster than we expected. We discussed the possibility of registration of people with chronic disease at the Pandemic Commission and it will be further discussed at the Council of Experts on Thursday. We are working on prioritizing people with chronic diseases and we are looking for technical decision. We are currently discussing two possibilities. We do not want people to come to their doctors now and ask for confirmation of their diseases and we do not want people to come to vaccination centers with some certificated according to which it will be assessed if they can be vaccinated.
We do not want to increase the mobility of people in this way and we want the identification of applicable disease to be carried out prior to the vaccination. We are involving health insurances in this process so they could provide the information to NCZI, so they could directly contact and register the patients with diagnoses for the vaccination. So we are working on this to ensure the prioritization of these people as soon as possible.
Q: One thing is to prioritize them and the second is whether they will be able to choose which vaccine to be vaccinated with, as some of them are afraid to use AstraZeneca?
SSJ: This will be still a topic of discussions, so far we did not discuss the types of vaccines. The side effects are the same for all vaccines, but with AstraZeneca they are just being demonstrated little bit differently due to different nature of the vaccine. But we do not register that there would be any agreement on which vaccine is appropriate in different cases.
Let´s wait for the decision of Council of Experts, where people with expertise will decide, and they will also discuss other issues, such as possible postponement of the second dose of vaccine.
Q: I wanted to ask how many MOMs will be opened after 1 April due to changed contract conditions?
SS Stachura: We received various reactions, and some providers of MOMs did not like the new conditions that are related to new situation. We decreased the financial sum, also because of reduced PPE required for taking the sample and other factors related to some of the changes in the legislation. We so far received 630 replies back from MOMs that said they want to continue to operate the testing places.
Q: How many MOMs were there before?
SS Stachura: 770, so 81% showed interest in continuing in the contracts.
Q: When will be the new testing strategy published?
SS Stachura: We discussed some changes today, some will also go to government meeting, so let’s wait for their decision. Any changes should take place only after the Easter holidays.
Q: Should we expect any postponement of the administration of second dose of vaccine Pfizer or Moderna as seen in Czech Republic?
SSJ: I read the Czech decision, which will give the second dose only after 42 days. In Slovakia it is still 28th day for both of these vaccines. With Astra we give the second dose on 70th day.
We are also putting this proposal to the Thursday Council of Experts to decide whether to keep the current strategy or to also extend these deadlines. So, I cannot give you any answer at this moment.
Q: When will Johnson and Johnson vaccine start to be used?
SSJ: We expect the first deliveries on 19 April – 9600 doses. On 26 April, 16 800 more doses should arrive. This is a one-dose vaccine and we want to use this vaccine effectively, so where the one dose is really suitable, such as with immobile patients.
Q: Allegedly Minister, you discussed with church representatives how the churches could be opened during Easter holidays. Did you agree on something?
MH: Easter holidays is the most important Christian holiday of year, but we realize the pandemic situation is not ideal yet. We will discuss it tomorrow at the government.
Q: Are there any news on usage of self-tests in households?
SS Stachura: We discussed this but we will announce the details only next week. Nothing will change until the Easter, and only after the holidays there will be some changes in the testing strategy.
Q: Any changes in schools?
MH: Nothing changes until Easter and after the holidays we will inform on time about any possible changes.
Q: Any news about Sputnik?
SSJ: We still do not show it in our table as we are not currently using this vaccine in Slovakia.
We still received only those 200 000 doses. We expect the results by SUKL, they could come already tomorrow. We had some meeting already, but the tests were not complete. We will then take further decisions.
Q: Are we expecting any further deliveries?
SSJ: Of course, we expect further deliveries. I am not sure now if 200 000 or 400 000 doses should come in upcoming period. We are also working on technical solution for the registration for this vaccine.
Q: Are you considering any similar solution as in Israel where vaccinated people can go to restaurants or other facilities?
SSJ: Currently this is not being considered yet, given that the percentage of vaccinated is still very low compared to Israel for example. We currently have 12.4% of people vaccinated when considering the whole population.
CH: I do not rule out that we might address such question in summer, but currently we can hardly compare ourselves with Israel, so such option is not possible at the moment.
Q: As part of the legislative changes that should be discussed in Parliament already was also that the Ministry should define which foreigner Slovakia will vaccinate and cover the expenses of vaccination for. Have you already decided on this?
SSJ: As part of the amended legislation, we included Slovaks who do not have a health insurance in Slovakia, such as homeless people or people who did not file the application for the health insurance yet, then we also included two groups of foreigners – foreigners with additional protection and foreigners with some similar status, I cannot remember exactly. And then it is written that other groups of foreigners will be defined by the ministry. We are still working on this topic, I can tell you that already the second month we are leading the negotiations on which foreigners these should be, and which criteria they should meet, if there
needs to be some minimal length of the stay in Slovakia, and similar, in order to avoid creating some vaccination tourism to Slovakia, and to ensure that primarily Slovak citizens can get vaccinated. We want to create a clearly defined list of groups of foreigners, whom we will vaccinate and we are working on it.
Q: If you are working on it already for the second month, can you tell when such decision could be expected?
SSJ: I cannot tell you this at the moment, I do not want to get bound by any deadlines. Inter- ministerial teams are working on this issue, to define which groups these should be, because there are really different types of foreigners here, such as spouses of the Slovak citizens, foreigners working at embassies and other places, so we have to clearly define which groups will be entitled to the vaccination, so as not to create some scissors through which we would be losing vaccines.
