SLOVAKIA LIFTS PANDEMIC STATE OF EMERGENCY

The Slovakian government has decided to end the pandemic state of emergency that was introduced on October 1, the prime minister said on Friday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

"We promised that the state of emergency would not last a minute longer than necessary, and we are sticking to that," Prime Minister Eduard Heger told a press conference in Bratislava. The state of emergency is to be lifted on Saturday night, May 15, 2021.

The state of emergency, controversial ever since it was introduced, enabled the government to forcibly recruit health care workers, impose curfews and ban demonstrations and other mass gatherings.

After the state of emergency is lifted, gatherings will no longer be banned.

However, the government wants to retain some of its additional powers concerning the health sector, and parliament approved a law to this end on March 11.

Slovakia, with a population of 5.5 million, registered 12,168 deaths since the pandemic began, according to Friday's figures. Case numbers are now falling, with 105.8 new infections recorded per 100,000 inhabitants over the past 14 days.

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