Illustrative stock photo (source: SME)
In the past few days, daily COVID-19 deaths have been reaching up to 20. The number of those who do not survive the coronavirus infection are likely to grow in the coming days, pathologist Michal Pakovič expects.
Palkovič is the head of the forensic medicine and pathologic anatomy section of the Office for Health Care Surveillance (ÚDZS). The curfew the Central Crisis Staff ordered on Thursday and that has been in place since Saturday is likely to bring a drop in deaths, but not for another two weeks.
On Friday, 19 more people died of COVID-19. It is a relatively high number, considering that in Slovakia about 150 die every day on average, outside the pandemic.
"It should be stressed that those 19 are on top of that. They would not have died under normal circumstances," the pathologist said.
40 deaths a day
"Given the number of deaths, we will be at about one third compared to the Czechs," Palkovič estimates when asked how many people are expected to die of COVID-19 in Slovakia at the top of the epidemic curve.
The neighbouring Czech Republic has been reporting record numbers of coronavirus deaths in the past two weeks. On October 21, last Wednesday, 108 people died. That leads the experts to the conclusion that in Slovakia the daily death counts could be around 40 cases a day.
We might not be far from those numbers even now, since Palkovič reported 28 deaths both Tuesday and Wednesday last week to the statistics system. These numbers do not show in the daily data, they come with a few days' delay.
