Slovakia imposes overnight curfew to fight Covid

BRATISLAVA: Slovakia imposed an overnight curfew from Wednesday, the health ministry said, as the ex-communist country battles the world’s highest Covid mortality rate.

Slovaks will not be allowed out of their homes between 8:00 pm and 5:00 am, according to a government decree. During the day, Slovaks are being asked to stay in their homes with some exceptions, including medical visits, going to work and walks in nature or with pets.

The curfew applies until March 19 but may be extended. The EU country of 5.4 million has the world’s highest rate of Covid deaths, with 24 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants over the last 14 days, according to an AFP tally.

The high rate "is due to many factors, Slovakia has made several mistakes," Doctors’ Trade Union Association chairman Peter Visolajsky told AFP earlier. "The lockdown was introduced too late and it is not sufficiently monitored. Also, this mortality rate is caused by the overall bad condition of Slovak healthcare," Visolajsky said.

The expert said that, rather than adopting more restrictions, better enforcement of those already in place "could reduce the number of infections". Slovakia on Monday became the second country in the EU after Hungary to receive a shipment of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines after ordering two million of the jabs.

The decision has proved highly divisive within the governing coalition of Prime Minister Igor Matovic. Foreign Minister Ivan Korcok has called the vaccine a tool in the Kremlin’s "hybrid war" against the West.

One of the four centre-right parties in the coalition has called for a reshuffle, accusing the government of mismanaging the pandemic and buying Russian vaccines without the consent of the whole cabinet.

President Zuzana Caputova has said that only vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency should be used in Slovakia, which would exclude Sputnik V. The country is struggling to control the pandemic and has called on its EU partners for assistance.

So far, Poland has agreed to take in 10 Slovak patients for treatment and Romania has sent a medical team.Meanwhile, an explosion struck a Dutch coronavirus testing centre in a "cowardly act of destruction" on Wednesday, shattering windows but causing no injuries, police and government officials said.

The early morning blast in the town of Bovenkarspel, 60 kilometres (40 miles) north of the capital Amsterdam, was caused by a metal cylinder left outside the building, police said. The incident comes weeks after another testing centre was burned down during violent riots across the Netherlands against a coronavirus curfew.

"Police were called at 6.55 am by a security guard from the corona test centre to say that an explosion had taken place. He had heard a loud bang and then saw that several windows of the building had broken," a police statement said.

"Outside the building was a metal cylinder that had exploded. No one was injured in the incident." North Holland police spokesman Menno Hartenberg said the explosion appeared to be deliberate.

"It’s not possible that this was by accident, the object was placed there and exploded near the front of the test centre," Hartenberg told AFP by telephone. "We are not ruling anything out and can’t say anything about a motive, an investigation is underway."

Hartenberg added: "It was a metal object somewhere between a tube and a canister."In a related development, a top US health official warned late on Wednesday, that Covid-19 measures had to stay in place if the pandemic is to be beaten, after Texas defied the federal government and dropped its mask-wearing mandate.

The United States has recorded over 500,000 deaths from the coronavirus, but has recently made progress with its vaccination plan, and some states are easing controls -- triggering alarm from health experts.

"Now is not the time to release all restrictions... the next month or two is really pivotal in terms of how this pandemic goes," said Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Every individual is empowered to do the right thing here regardless of what the states decide... I would still encourage individuals to wear a mask, to socially distance."