MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Thursday, March 19, 2020 - 9 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Wednesday, March 18): BRATISLAVA - OLaNO leader and future prime minister Igor Matovic on Wednesday presented the composition of the new Government, which will be appointed by President Zuzana Caputova on Saturday. The president stated that she accepts all the nominated names. The winner of the general election, i.e. the OLaNO party, will take charge of seven ministries. The list of individual ministerial nominations is as follows: finance minister - Eduard Heger; interior minister - Roman Mikulec; health minister - Marek Krajci; defence minister - Jaroslav Nad; agriculture minister - Jan Micovsky; environment minister - Jan Budaj; and culture minister - Natalia Milanova. Matovic himself is set to become prime minister. We Are Family will take three de facto ministerial seats in the cabinet. Milan Krajniak has been nominated for the post of labour minister, while Andrej Dolezal will head the transport ministry and Stefan Holy will be vice-premier for legislation and strategic planning. We Are Family head Boris Kollar has been nominated for the post of parliamentary chair. Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) will be responsible for three ministries. Branislav Grohling will head the Education Ministry, Ivan Korcok will take care of the Foreign Affairs Ministry and SaS chief Richard Sulik will be economy minister and first vice-premier for the economy at the same time. The For the People party has obtained two ministries. Maria Kolikova is set to become justice minister, while Veronika Remisova will become vice-premier and minister for investments and regional development. BRATISLAVA - Eight new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Slovakia on Wednesday, while 70 samples analysed within the same time frame have proven negative, outgoing Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) stated on the same day. The total tally of confirmed cases has now exceeded one hundred to stand at 105. BRATISLAVA - The higher level state of emergency that is currently in place for state-run hospitals will be officially extended to all segments of health care in Slovakia, including private facilities, as of Thursday, as part of measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, the Cabinet decided on Wednesday. The measure was indicated for the first time by Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini following a meeting of the central crisis management team on Monday. BRATISLAVA - The Slovak Armed Forces are in full readiness to deal with an emergency situation, Chief-of-General-Staff Daniel Zmeko stated on Wednesday following a meeting of the central crisis management team. "Every member of the armed forces who is not currently ill is available either immediately or within a maximum of six hours. In practice, this means that there are more than 2,800 people available to the crisis staff management team," said Zmeko. BRATISLAVA - The movement of people in Slovakia has decreased in total by about 30 percent, according to data from telecommunication operators, outgoing Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) reported after a session of the Government and central crisis team on Wednesday. "We register a pronounced drop in the movement of people with mobile phones," claimed Pellegrini. Some operators report even decreases of up to half of their SIM cards. According to the Prime Minister, such people are moving only around their own neighbourhood and if this trend were to change, the Government stands ready to declare a nationwide emergency state with restrictions to movements of people, but such a decision will likely fall to the incoming cabinet of Igor Matovic (OLaNO). BRATISLAVA - President Zuzana Caputova will accept the resignation of Peter Pellegrini's (Smer-SD) Government on Friday (March 20) after the opening session of Parliament, TASR was told by president's spokesman Martin Strizinec on Wednesday. Pellegrini will resign for the entire outgoing government. The new government, led by OLaNO chair Igor Matovic, will be appointed by the president on Saturday (March 21) at 1 p.m. zel