Banská Bystrica (source: TASR)
After all the lockdowns, ‘skrinings’, ‘automats’, and incoherent ‘I’ll just put it out there’ proposals floated by ministers one day and torpedoed the next, the numbers contracting Covid-19 continue to tick up by thousands a day, and deaths by over 100 a day. Daily vaccinations remain pitifully low, in four-digit figures.
Each week, I trudge down to the local testing centre – a former primary school – where someone in full-body PPE sticks a swab up my nose. The youngsters all get their results by SMS, but the pensioners and I know from bitter experience that a physical bumážka is the gold standard of Slovak bureaucracy, and worth a few extra moments of our time.
As we wait in the playground for our numbers to come up, a boombox serenades us with rock hits. This week it was ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor.
