Shopping fever is over in Bratislava. When they go outside, residents of Bratislava are heading for the parks or to walk along the river with facemasks donned. But the panic buying of just a couple weeks ago is over and the streets are virtually empty. Lidove noviny writes that the endless traffic jams that have accompanied the city’s rapid development have disappeared as if by magic. It quotes a waiter in one of the city’s restaurants that was forced to close whose income has taken a serious hit. “Since I work in gastronomy, it’s 60 percent of the minimum wage,” he said, complaining that so far, the only thing the government has managed to do for entrepreneurs is to defer social and health payments. In some cases, the private sector is reacting to ease the situation. The country’s biggest bank Slovenska sporitelna has announced a series of measures for its retail and commercial clients to request loan payment reductions and to cancel all banking charges for six months for clients that use a wide enough spectrum of the bank’s services.
