The first study of this sort in Slovenia, which is meant to help authorities plan the way out of the lockdown, involves a sample of randomly selected 3,000 residents of Slovenia of all ages and is representative by age, gender and territorial breakdown of Slovenia.

So far 1,084 have accepted the invitation sent to them and a total of 299 tests have been taken. The results are in for about 200 and all have been negative, which officials do not find surprising given the encouraging results from regular daily testing.

While the deadline for accepting the participation invitation is Friday, Miroslav Petrovec, the head of the Institute for Microbiology and Immunology at the Ljubljana Faculty of Medicine, said that around 30 persons had rejected the test. He believes this is mostly the result of a false belief the procedure is painful.

"There have been no complaints on the ground about the procedure being painful," he told the press on Wednesday, calling on everybody to accept the invitation.

Those tested are swabbed for the presence of the virus SARS-COV-2 while they also have to give blood samples for a serological test for antibodies.

What are ten teams of technicians started visiting the participants of the study at their homes in Ljubljana on Monday, while they have been on the road all around the country on Tuesday and today.

He said that they a reporting very positive experiences, apart from the long driving hours and late evening return that is followed by more lab work during the night.

Petrovec announced the results would be in ten days after the launch of the study, meaning probably just before the May holidays.