long queues outside this corona virus
testing station in batislava
it is one of thousands that opened on
saturday to screen slovakia's entire
population
of over 5 million testing is voluntary
but anyone not participating has to
self-isolate
for 10 days
i'm here because i believe we will find
out who has the virus
it will go away and eventually we will
live a normal life again
in the past three weeks slovakia has
seen thousands of new infections each
day
mass screening has helped to control the
virus and avoid further restrictions
more than 40 000 healthcare workers army
and police have been deployed to carry
out the tests
medical staff are expressing their
concerns
i'm going to be a doctor soon and i
don't want it to end up like
italy and i wouldn't want to find my
first
job is to decide if someone lives or
dies
this first round of testing covered
around a million people
with reportedly one percent receiving a
positive result
a second round of mass testing is
planned in a week's time
journalist biata balagova joins me now
from bratislava biata greetings
uh do people by and large support this
mass testing
the country is torn over this testing
because
even though the government says it's
voluntarily voluntary it's not
because anyone who is not get tested
they have to self-isolate and also
people
worry that they might get infected
while standing in lines and also this
testing is a huge
strain on medical workers and
friday evening it still wasn't clear if
the state is able to mobilize enough
people to do the testing
however now it seems that they were able
to
get enough medical help even from
hungary and austria some physicians and
nurses came to help in bratislava
so the country's largely divided um it's
it this nationwide test
is clearly unprecedented could it reveal
new details about the virus like large
numbers of people without symptoms
yes i think this slovakia has turned
into a big laboratory for the whole
world
because now the whole nation is tested
and so far the numbers doesn't really
show
like they revealed 26 000 cases
in a country of 5 million so this is
approximately what in
five days normal pcr testing would have
revealed
so we will have to wait a little bit to
to draw conclusions about
about how well like a nationwide
testing works but in slovakia
we really thought that that this was uh
something like a last chance because the
hospitals
in many regions started collapsing
however a lot of experts warned that
it's much better or it would be much
better to do focused
testing than testing the whole
population especially in regions where
you have
like zero zero
cases or zero pair three so
very very under one percent cases of
of infection yeah we only have about 30
seconds but you mentioned the hospitals
collapsing
if the results show a high number of
positive tests will will slovakia be
able to cope with their health demands
it's a big question i i hope so and i
think that
it will have to come back be combined
with with the lockdown
anyway so we we are not going to escape
the lockdown
journal espiata balagova thank you so
much
thank you
you