Serbia announces massive testing for COVID-19 with Chinese help

BELGRADE - Serbian authorities plan to fight the COVID-19 in cooperation with Chinese experts, and have decided to start massive testing among its population, President Aleksandar Vucic said at a press conference on Monday.

Crisis staff for COVID-19 met experts from the frontlines of the battle in China, and according to Vucic who attended the meeting, they discussed ways for healthcare staff to treat the virus infection and deal with the virus itself.

So far, according to him, the authorities were trying to influence the pandemic curve, but the "virus itself was not substantially attacked."

"The essence is that we decided to change our approach and policy and to go for mass testing," he said.

According to Vucic, drastic increase in tested samples will be noted in the next 48 hours. Serbia already has enough testing kits for the next few days from a Chinese donation, and will need to obtain more.

The meeting also discussed the measures that the Serbian state can further implement in order to enable the professionals to do their job, as well as economic measures to ease the impact of the crisis on the future of people in Serbia.

Vucic said that the Chinese experts were satisfied with measures adopted so far by Serbian authorities and therapeutic protocols, announcing that they will also help with regard to Chinese traditional medicine, where it proved efficient.

Patients will be separated according to the severity of their symptoms and distributed to designated locations across the country.

Vucic said that Serbia received a significant number of ventilators from China as a donation, and purchased some more from China too, "because they couldn't be bought anywhere else."

He asked people "to stay at home between 21 and 28 days" and put an end to coronavirus.

Vucic said that Serbia is preparing a plan to help companies that don't lay off employees during the crisis and that it does not plan to decrease pensions or salaries in public sector.

He predicted that Serbia's growth rate will be around minus two percent, "which would represent one of the best results in Europe."

The third infected person died on Monday in Serbia, while confirmed cases now amounted to 249.