Eight days after the academic year opened, hygienists placed the dorm of the medical school in Martin, a temporary home to 800 students, under quarantine.
Students remained trapped in the high-rise building. They eat in the canteen of the facility based on a schedule, and volunteers do shopping for them. They will remain quarantined until October 5.
By Friday, 17 students living at the dorm in Martin had had a positive coronavirus test, and the dorm has become a hotspot of infection. Hygienists suppose it is due to parties that the students had organised.
"As if they had forgotten that responsible behaviour and observing the rules was due," chief hygienist of the Regional Public Health Office in Martin, Tibor Záborský, said. "For sure it was not two to three people, but possibly dozens of students meeting at once."
Slovakia's largest student dormitory village in the Mlynska Dolina area of Bratislava and the nearby Družba dormitories are now following the red phase, with a stricter regime, too. Altogether 12 students have tested positive.
"University dorms are very risky," infectologist and member of the pandemic commission Pavol Jarčuška said. According to him, experts have already discussed adjusting the rules for universities and their housing facilities.
"If a university can, it should switch to remote education and only those who really have to should stay at the dormitories," Jarčuška said.
The largest universities in Bratislava, Comenius University and the Slovak University of Technology, announced on Monday, September 28 that they were switching to remote teaching as of October 5.