International COVID-19 Megathread

[Estrella]

So, during the first wave in March-April-May, Slovakia was held as a good example of Doing Things That Work. Strict (but not too strict) measures enacted early on helped to flatten the curve fairly quickly and things returned to almost normal during the summer until, well, two weeks ago. We're now in the middle of a second wave, with a thousand or more new cases every day (in a country of 5.4 million, remember). And the government thought: we have 13 million tests in stock... why not test everyone? As in, literally every single person in the country (above the age of 10). The plan is that people will go to their local polling station, get tested (for free) and, within 30 minutes, get a certificate. The testing will be voluntary except it won't - people will need to stay qurantined at home for 10 days if they don't get tested and people going outside might be asked to show their certificate and be fined if they don't have it. People will also be able to get tested at private providers, if they pay for it themselves. The gov't expects that they'll open 5000 testing sites and will need some 20 to 40 thousand people - the testing will be done by volunteers and army medics, the organizing and bureaucracy by ordinary soldiers, police, civil defence and probably anyone who is available.

Right now as I'm writing this, the PM is speaking about the meeting of State Security Council about Operation Common Responsibility *eyeroll*. Today, the Army sent liaisons to local councils to arrange things. The testing will start in the hotspots in the north of the country and begin nationwide in two weeks.

This is either indisputably genius or criminally stupid; probably both.

FWIW, the Prime Minister's handling of this crisis has been pretty good so far but he's been unbelievably bad at selling it and usually comes off as a reckless idiot. His party got 15% in a poll last week; I won't be surprised it they end up in single digits before Christmas.

[Estrella]

First round of Slovakia's mass testing took place on Saturday and Sunday. Almost exactly 1% were positive, around 25k people. There were some hiccups - missing tests here, wrong size protective suits there, no certificates elsewhere - but they were almost always quickly solved. I'm genuinely surprised how smoothly it went: I didn't exactly expect a disaster, but the whole thing was almost amazingly succesful.

The numbers for today aren't in yet, but yesterday was... impressive. Not to get all patriotic, but to test 2.5 million people, almost 50% of the country's population, in just 15 hours, without any significant chaos or panic, now that is something. Can't imagine that happening in many "more developed" countries. Dobrá práca!

[Estrella]

The mass testing in Slovakia is over - the first part, that is.

- 3,625,332 people participated, that is 66.7% of total population and 90.5% of population aged 10 to 65 - older people were recommended to stay home and from what I heard, they mostly did.
- 38,359 tests were positive, 1.06% of those tested.
- Positivity rates by district ranged from 0.27% (Revúca) to 3.22% (Čadca).
- A second round of testing will take place next weekend in 54 of 79 districts - those where more than 0.7% were positive.

An interesting tidbit: while theatres and such were often used as testing sites, the testing usually took place in the lobby - but not everywhere.

Also there's this (is it really him tho?)

[Estrella]

Until now, Slovakia's PM Igor Matovič has been handling the situation pretty well. Generally low infection rates, reasonably strict measures and even a world first - successful mass testing of the whole population. I don't know what happened in the last month or so, but he seems to have become completely unhinged.

The GALAXY BRAIN of his came up with an idea. On December 7, we'll reopen schools, but with the following measures: before entering, children will gargle salt water (?!) and spit in a bucket (?!!) which will then be sealed and sent for testing. If the result is positive, all children who spat in the bucket (and their parents and siblings) will have to get tested and they will only be allowed to enter school premises with a negative result. The testing will be conducted by teachers (?!?!) because there isn't enough qualified personnel (yet somehow there was enough for the mass testing?).

The reaction from literally everyone (scared children, shocked parents, teachers on the brink of a heart attack, headteachers desperate after being screamed at by parents who threaten to sue them, public health experts, even people in his own cabinet, basically anyone with a functioning brain) was thus. Today, Matovič decided to do a 180° for the xth time in the past few weeks and his new plan is... f**k knows.

Christ alive, what a f****** cretin. Small wonder that he has a like -35 approval rating (and that was before this disaster!).