Unofficial Translation
Press Conference on the current epidemiological situation 16/09/2021
Minister of Health Vladimír Lengvarský
Good afternoon. I will substitute for Mr. Mišík today and present the data on current epidemiological situation. Here are some important numbers. The increase of new cases is almost two-fold. I think I do not have to comment on these numbers any further, you all know the current situation is deteriorating. New patients in hospitals are in more than 85% cases not vaccinated, and the vaccinated patients are of higher age and with other prior diseases.
Vaccination thus protects against disease and hospitalization.
These are the predictions for the end of September. Our analyses provide us with the following numbers. We should have maximum of 3000 cases a day and 500-750 people are expected to be in hospitals.
Given the current situation, also the number of visits of emergency medical services to Covid patients has increased.
Also the admissions to hospitals are increasing, from last week´s 11 to 20 a day.
Here is the profile of hospitalized persons. Almost 80% is unvaccinated and approximately 15%
is fully vaccinated. The median of age of vaccinated patients is much higher than of unvaccinated persons.
The vaccination is continuing with insufficient pace – approximately 1500 vaccinated persons a day. In the age group of 50+, however, we already have 60% vaccinated population.
As for division of districts according to Covid Automat for next week, only 4 districts will still begreen and there will be 4 districts in burgundy phase. Bardejov district will be burgundy already from tomorrow due to quickly deteriorating situation reported by the local hygienist.
I decided to visit this district tomorrow to inspect the situation and see what are their predictions, how they plan to solve the situation and whether they need any help from the Ministry of Health.
This is the map for next week. Rožňava, Krupina, Skalica and Bardejov will be in burgundy colour, Bardejov already from tomorrow.
Today at Government meeting we also approved the version 4.2 of the Covid Automat. There are few methodological changes. The main change is that, based on recommendations from analysts, we decided to use the weighted incidence for children in amount of 1/5. This means that 1 adult will have same weight as 5 children. The aim of this change is not have to shift the districts into worse colours just because of higher incidence of virus among children, who
tend to have milder course. As I said already, this change was suggested by data analysts and it was approved by Council of Experts. Also, as for the algorithm for determining the colours of districts, the recommendations of regional hygienists will have more importance, also in terms of neighbouring districts.
As for the output of the Covid Automat, in 50 districts there is medium level of community spread of the virus, in 10 districts such spread is very high. You can also see the positivity of PCR tests.
Here is vaccination according to age groups. There is higher increase in vaccination of younger age groups, for older people the increase is unfortunately lower.
Here is an estimated curve and a real curve of confirmed cases. We are pretty much progressing in an expected way.
This is what I discussed already – almost 80% of new cases are among persons who are not fully vaccinated.
Here are the maps showing the countries with highest incidence of positive cases and the highest growth of new cases. Unfortunately, we also belong there, as well as some other countries from Central and Eastern Europe and Balkans.
This is the comparisons of incidence in Slovakia and neighbouring countries.
You can see that Austria has the highest numbers at the moment. Here is the same data in table.
As for vaccination share in Europe, Slovakia is still among worse countries, unfortunately.
Thank you for your attention.
Questions:
Q: Some analysts are still saying the vaccination is not available enough to people. Why is vaccination not possible in pharmacies for example?
ML: We were considering this option, but there are some legislative obstacles and one of them is also training for pharmacy workers for administering vaccine. But we are working on this option for the future.
We are trying to provide the vaccination as close to people as possible, I think the options are quite broad nowadays. There are mobile vaccination teams and the number of general practitioners who vaccinate in their offices is growing as well. There are already 700 of such GPs and we are asking them to focus on the age group 50+. However, we also register growing antivaxer groups that are bothering people who want to get vaccinated on streets. This antivaxer lobby is getting stronger. Some people simply do not want to get vaccinated and their opinion will not change despite anything we do. The preparation of vaccination campaign is in the last stage, but also the communication of some politicians who discourage their voters from vaccination is slowing us down a lot.
Q: For restricting the movement after 21:00 in burgundy districts, it is needed to approve the state of emergency. However, no such resolution was approved today at Government meeting.
ML: Given that so far only 4 districts are in burgundy colour, the state of emergency will not yet be declared. I am not saying it will not be necessary in upcoming future, but so far the instructions will be given to regional health authorities and local authorities and mayors, so that they can limit the opening hours of some shops and services and some mass events in a way that the movement of people at this time will be restricted.
Q: There will be no curfew?
ML: No, so far no. The movement will be only limited at local level.
Q: Some classrooms of schools are already closing due to worsening situation. Will there be some nation-wide rules for closure?
ML: The school have their own Covid Automat according to which they function. I spoke to Minister of Education and at this moment still not so many classrooms are closed and the teaching is continuing successfully. There will be no nation-wide closure of schools anymore.
Of course on local level, some classrooms will have to close temporarily. In districts with better vaccination shares, we are currently considering the option of individual quarantine – that means that in districts with high vaccination rate, the positive pupils would go into individual quarantine without closing the whole classrooms. The quarantine is also shortened to 10 days from this week.
Q: When will the new methodology of Covid Automat start to apply?
ML: From September 20, so next week. This week, the old methodology is still being used.
