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 Slovakia, a country of 5.5 million, has the highest per-capita
infection rise in the world, according to figures from Our World in
Data, as Europe becomes an epicentre of the pandemic again.
Neighbouring Austria has already locked down its population this
week, for at least 10 days, to become the first to re-impose such
restrictions, and Slovakia was looking at taking a similar step on
Wednesday when the government meets.
Before the meeting, Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad said no
alternative existed.
"If we want to be responsible, we have only one option, the rest is
populism," he was quoted as saying by news server Dennik N, which
earlier reported government parties had a preliminary agreement on a
two-week lockdown.
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 A strong surge in COVID-19
cases has been seen around central and eastern
Europe: the Czech Republic and Hungary also
reported record daily tallies of new coronavirus
cases on Wednesday.
In Slovakia, which has the European Union's
third-lowest vaccination rate with only 45% of
the population inoculated, the surge is putting
new pressure on hospitals.
The Health Ministry said the number of people
hospitalised had reached a "critical point" at
3,200 and was approaching peaks of around 3,800
seen in the last wave of the pandemic. Most
patients were unvaccinated.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Catherine
Evans and Philippa Fletcher)
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