Pellegrini: Face Masks Will Be Distributed as of Monday

(TA3, V politike, March 15) Several hundred thousand face masks have been in the stocks of the State Material Reserves Administration since last week, Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini stated on TA3"s programme 'In Politics' on Sunday, adding that the authorities are now trying to figure out how this commodity should be distributed as effectively as possible and that they"ll start distributing them on Monday. Pellegrini conceded that a huge war for face masks is taking place. "We're competing against every country in the common market," he noted. He added that Slovakia reserved two million face masks in Ukraine, explaining that the seller"s condition was payment in cash. "We were basically putting €1.2 million in cash inside a suitcase so that we could send off the Government"s special aircraft and fly for the masks ... A dealer from Germany then appeared there and bought up every mask," said Pellegrini. The prime minister is set to hold talks with the owners of the Incheba Expo Arena in Bratislava on Monday to inquire whether these premises could be used if the capacities of hospitals become overloaded. The premises could be also used for mobile testing of the public. zel/df