MORNING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS - Sunday, October 17, 2021 - 9.00 a.m.

TASR brings a quick morning overview of the most important events seen in Slovakia on the previous day (Saturday, October 16): NEW POSITIVE PCR TESTS: 1,941 Positive PCR tests in total: 435,650 NEW POSITIVE ANTIGEN TESTS: 425 Positive antigen tests in total: 399,009 NEW DEATHS: 17 Deaths in total: 12,833 BRATISLAVA - No hospital will be shut down when the Health Ministry-sponsored reform of the hospital network is launched, the Government Office stated on Friday (October 15) in reaction to recent criticism of the planned move by several opposition politicians. "The main objective of the reform isn’t to shut down any hospitals, but to make them specialise in certain areas, which will save many lives. This is clearly demonstrated by data from the Health Ministry, according to which people even today prefer quality when it comes to planned surgery, if they know where they can expect quality services," stated the office. BRATISLAVA - A total of 1,528,984 people aged between 15 and 64 have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Wednesday (October 13, 2021), TASR has learnt from National Health Information Centre (NCZI) spokeswoman Alzbeta Siva. The highest number of fully vaccinated are residents of Bratislava region (265,351), Presov (210,516) and Kosice (197,649) regions. These are followed by Zilina (193,575), Nitra (183,717), Trnava (174,427), Banska Bystrica (154,548) and Trencin (149,201) regions, said Siva. BRATISLAVA - Schools will continue self-testing until the end of the year, Education, Science, Research and Sport Minister Branislav Groehling (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) said on the basis of communication with Slovakia's Chief Hygienist Jan Mikas. "The distribution of self-testing materials will continue and we'll again contact the schools," said the education minister, adding that they will also include the parents who didn't use this possibility in the previous period. BRATISLAVA - Approximately 8.5 kilograms (kg) of electrical waste is collected per capita per year in Slovakia, however, electronic equipment manufacturers point out that there is still a part of electrical waste that does not enter official statistics. The possibilities of more efficient collection of this waste were therefore discussed at the Environment Ministry this week. More than 86,000 tonnes of electrical equipment was launched on the Slovak market last year. ko