Unofficial Translation
Press Conference after the Government meeting 27/10/2021
Minister of Health Lengvarský
Let me inform you briefly about the basic facts related to the current epidemiological situation in Slovakia. Further details will be part of the presentation tomorrow at the Ministry of Health.
As you know we have launched the registration for the vaccination with the third dose.
Yesterday, the first 100 000 SMS messages were sent to possible applicants according to the algorythm based on age and period passed since the administration of the second dose. We will continue to send further text messages.
In period from 18 October until 26 October, 66 304 third doses were administered and currently there are 8 822 people waiting for the third dose in the waiting room system. We are vaccinating with the third dose at 98 places, of which 7 are large capacity vaccination centers, 16 polyclinics, and 75 hospitals.
Our mobile teams went to the outbreak sites 16 times in different parts of Slovakia, together with the intervention teams of the Ministry of Health. Moreover, armed forces were asked for the assistance and currently 142 professional soldiers are helping, of which 91 are in hospitals and 51 are in regional public health offices.
As for the epidemiological situation, I will try to describe it very briefly. Here is the incidence per 100 000 inhabitants.
This is the current status of vaccination. I continue to call on our citizens to decide to protect themselves, their surrounding and the hospitals, and get vaccinated.
These are the current numbers as for the daily cases, admissions to hospitals, hospitalized patients and ventilated patients. The relatively positive news is that the number of ventilated patients is still kept at 120-130 people for the last couple of days, so I believe this critical aspect, which is the number of the most vulnerable patients on ventilation, will remain on lower numbers as is the case now.
Here is the proportion of vaccinated and unvaccinated patients admitted to hospitals. The situation is stable there.
Approximately 10 000 people vaccinated with the first dose are being added weekly.
However, we still have around 180 000 unvaccinated people in category of 70+.
You can see the numbers for the division of districts according to Covid Automat for the next week. 24 districts will be in black colour.
Here the division is shown in the graphic version on the map.
For the last two weeks, 79% of cases are among people who are not fully vaccinated – that means they are not vaccinated at all or have received only the first dose.
The highest number of positively tested is among children and also in the age category 35-50 years old.
Here is the development of hospitalizations across the regions. We are currently nation-wide at 32% occupancy of the maximum available beds. The regional differences are significant.
Here are the key results of Covid Automat. I think Mr. Mišík will talk about it in more detail tomorrow.
That is all. Thank you.
Questions:
Q: As for the restriction of movement during holidays, is there any update?
Minister Lengvarský: It was communicated several times that we call on people to be responsible. The Council of Experts has presented their recommendations last week, when it asked people to reconsider travelling to black districts, restrict the length of their stay, think about the time of travelling in order to avoid large gatherings of people, and abide to basic hygienic rules such as wearing masks and using disinfection. There will not be any changes related to this.
Q: How is the reprofilling of beds going?
ML: Hospitals have some plans and when reaching certain numbers they proceed with different phases of reprofilling of their beds. There are no problems reported with these processes.
Q: Are you satisfied with the work of NCZI, given that the registration for third dose was again not launched at announced date?
ML: The launch of registration was postponed by one day. I met with the director of NCZI yesterday and he ensured me that everything was prepared. I would not evaluate my position as being either satisfied or dissatisfied. The registration was launched yesterday at my approval, and I do not have any bigger reservations about this.
Q: People are already complaining about technical problems with registration, mostly those vaccinated as first in January or February who do not have any PIN code to fill in the registration form. What should they do?
ML: As I said, we will proceed according to age and date of second dose when sending the text messages with PIN codes. We will start with the oldest people and we will proceed with younger age groups after. If people have received the PIN code before during prior registration, they can use this PIN code to register for third dose too – it is still applicable.
But we will give preference to older age groups at the moment and observe the interest to know how much vaccination capacities to open.
Q: So people should wait for their turn to receive the PIN code by the invitation text message.
ML: Yes, alternatively they can look for vaccination sites that vaccinate without registration at the website and visit such centre.
Q: Another vaccine could be presented next year which should work on different, classic principle with inactive virus. Will Slovakia be interested in it?
ML: We are interested in all vaccines approved by EMA.
Q: Do you think this could be a breaking point for people afraid of new vaccines? Will you support it?
ML: We support any vaccination. If I am correct, we have 7.5 million of vaccines contracted for next year, and this vaccine you described is among these. However, I do not see the start of using this vaccine earlier than in the half of the next year.
Q: How do you perceive the news related to the death of Mr. Paška (former Minister of Education and deputy for SNS whose death was allegedly evaluated as possibly caused by vaccination by SUKL as reported in media)?
ML: I am hearing about this for the first time.
Q: Should people be afraid or not?
ML: Certainly not.
Q: I want to ask again about the recommendation not to travel to black districts. Do you think the state of emergency should be declared and would it not be meaningful now during the holidays when people plan to travel?
ML: I said it several times – we are not considering the option of declaring the state of emergency.
