Slovakia proposes lockdown amid record infection surge

Slovakia’s leaders have proposed a national lockdown as hospitals across the European Union country are hitting their limits amid a record surge of coronavirus infections

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia -- Slovakia’s leaders have proposed a national lockdown as hospitals across the European Union country are hitting their limits amid a record surge of coronavirus infections.

Inspired by neighboring Austria, the Slovak government is set to discuss a lockdown for all — vaccinated and unvaccinated alike — at its session Wednesday. Prime Minister Eduard Heger said it’s necessary to act “immediately.” His four-party coalition government was mulling a two or three-week lockdown.

“It’s an unpopular measure, but absolutely unavoidable,” President Zuzana Caputova said Tuesday after visiting a major medical facility in the capital of Bratislava.

Caputova said what she saw at Bratislava University Hospital “was tragic, was horrible.”