The second round of mass testing in Vráble. (source: SITA)
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The voluntary mass testing continued in selected municipalities during the previous weekend. While the district of Nitra and the city of Košice held the second round of testing, the town of Banská Bystrica tested people for the first time.
Nitra district
As many as 87,277 were tested during the second round of mass testing in the Nitra district, 1,107 were positive (or 1.27 percent). The rate of positive cases in the previous round was 2.44 percent, the SITA newswire reported.
Apart from the regional capital Nitra, the town of Vráble and all 60 villages in the district took part. Tests were also carried out in big production plants.
Nitra-based carmaker Jaguar Land Rover tested 4,235 people (both employees of the plant and of its suppliers) on January 14 and 15, 34 of them (or 0.79 percent) were positive. The number of positive cases dropped by more than one-half compared to the previous round, according to the company’s corporate affairs manager Miroslava Remenárová.
The district will hold one more round of mass testing this coming weekend.
Košice and its surroundings
In Košice, altogether 28,539 people were tested on January 15-17. Of them, 1,815 were tested in a testing site opened in U.S. Steel Košice.
A total of 501 people tested positive, which represents 1.76 percent. In the previous round, the rate was slightly lower, at 1.67 percent.
Three testing sites, in Kulturpark, amphitheatre and U.S. Steel Košice plant, remain open.
This time the testing also took place in the surrounding municipalities, including the town of Medzev and the villages of Budimír, Slanská Huta, Paňovce, Ždaňa, Veľká Ida, Rešica, and Belža. They carried out 2,641 tests in total there, and 61 were positive (or 2.3 percent), SITA reported.
Banská Bystrica
The voluntary testing also took place in Banská Bystrica on January 16 and 17.
Altogether 8,459 people from the entire district were tested and 72 were positive.
