We are entering new closures. Kindergartens and other retail stores will close. Which of those with an exception will be? Flower shop? Children’s footwear? Drugstore?
We will reduce exceptions, to a large extent it will correspond to seasonality. We made the last exceptions for the winter season, now it’s more or less a spring affair. Basic needs, be they groceries, drugstores, medical supply stores, pharmacies or opticians, will remain open. Some, such as ammunition shops, will no longer be there. It was there because of the shooting of black game, but we agreed that it was possible to endure it for those three weeks. I would say that the exceptions are reduced by about half.
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Will sales from restaurant dispensers be maintained? Yes, it remains.
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Since when will this be true?
The new state of emergency applies from Saturday, but the measures will take effect from Monday.
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Have you considered closing down production plants? Why do you think it is better to close shops and let industrial halls go?
It is an absolutely crucial thing. There are very strong emotional discussions around this. I am categorically against closing down the industry, and it is not only on the basis of economic arguments, but also on the basis of pandemic arguments. If today we want the industry to create tens of thousands of test sites through it and we are doing a huge project of comprehensive testing that is unparalleled here, then we cannot tell them at the same time that we will close them.
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We will want companies first on a voluntary basis, later on a mandatory basis, to accurately record tests and send positive tests to their GPs and then to PCR, and we cannot tell them at the same time: leave people at home. For us today, companies are strategic also because they create a very dense network of testing centers, and that is what everyone here has called for.
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And the economic factor?
Of course, shutting down a small shop is annoying, but we can help it. By paying the rent, we compensate the wages, we give him specific bonuses. It opens in two months and the company resuscitates relatively quickly. We are among the six most open economies in the world, our economy is dependent on exports. But when we close production plants for a month or two, the moment foreign customers find out that we are unable to supply them, they switch to another supplier without blinking an eye.
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They will supply companies from Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Balkans or even Asia. At that moment, what companies have been building there for decades will be lost in a few weeks and it will not be resuscitated. They will lose their jobs, they will have to start laying off immediately. There will be social peace and unemployment will rise rapidly.
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What if even a new tightening doesn’t work? Will production stop? Transport?
So far, we have been hampered by the lack of vaccines. In March, more vaccines will arrive than in the whole of January and February, and in April two and a half times what will come in March. It will be a turning point, thanks to enough vaccines, we will go much more intensive vaccinations, we have launched a comprehensive testing system, we will pair it with a three-week lockdown, and we will enforce the rules strongly enough. And when it turns out that someone is not following it, the time ends when the restaurants, which we forbade us to open, laughed at us and they kept selling happily. They get such a plaster that their socks roll up. There is no other way. The government also made mistakes, it didn’t always lead by example, I take it, but we have the option of a new start, so let’s take advantage of that. We have three weeks.
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You also want to restrict the movement of people. But can it be consistently enforced?
It has two aspects. Nobody wants to bully anyone. If someone goes to work, on the necessary way to their grandmother, then of course the possibility will be here. But the psychological aspect is clear. The mere fact that the purpose of the journey will have to be filled in, documented and justified will be fundamentally reduced. This is how it worked in France, Spain, Portugal. Although this is not a perfect path, but in a pandemic war we will not invent a system that will work 100%.
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It will be checked at random. We have to ask ourselves whether we will give up something for three weeks and move only between home and work or in the immediate vicinity of our home. Then we are partially out of it. Let’s last three weeks, test, vaccinate and follow certain rules, and then the release begins. If we manage to do this and endure this quarter, the second should start to relax.
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You have also considered restricting movement to one kilometer from home…
There were several proposals, one of them the so-called personal lockdown. It would be a certain distance from home, where people could walk with a dog, to nature. It’s an inspiration from Israel, where such a lockdown worked very well.
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Opposition leaders and governors have repeatedly accused your government and the prime minister of not submitting enough concrete proposals and documents at the emergency support negotiations. They complained about it again yesterday. It is true?
That is absolutely not true. What the opposition says must be divided today by at least two, maybe three. We are in a situation where the combination of covid and the upcoming parliamentary elections is absolutely murderous. The opposition does and will do anything to score points. She would always argue how chaotic the government is, how inconsistent it is, and how everything is done wrong, even if it is not a pandemic situation. And now imagine, when we are in an epidemiological situation that has not been here for a hundred years, the government is a brilliant target. With the pandemic law, the people accepted extremely positively that the government had finally reached an agreement with the opposition, and we pulled together for a while. Now he shoots into everything again.
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I am at those negotiations, the proposals are falling there, but before we say anything there, the members of the opposition are already tweeting it, degrading it and making fun of it. It is hard to resist the biggest pandemic in a hundred years, when everyone in opposition is throwing sticks at your feet. But it is part of politics and let each resident evaluate who is trying. I’m not saying that everything we do is done flawlessly. But no one will deny us that we are already working here from morning to night, for twelve months we are deploying everything we can. Our people do not have time off, they go nonstop.
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However, we have the worst numbers of infection in Europe and in the world. Why is it?
I wouldn’t even follow the number of infected at the moment, it depends on the reporting system, the number of tests, whether someone uses antigen tests and then sends positive for PCR tests and so on. This is no longer the most relevant number, each country shows it a little differently. More important is how health care is managed in terms of hospital occupancy. This is a priority indicator for us today. We still have to monitor the numbers of people in hospitals, in the ICU, and here it is on the edge today, but we are still not behind the point where it would collapse. Paramedics are doing an incredible job. As well as people from other components of the integrated rescue system, the army, police officers, firefighters, social workers, energy professionals.
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Okay, but what is it that we got to the edge, as you say?
Restrictions are the same as in Austria, but are not observed. We are inconsistent in enforcing them. Not everyone is leading by example, I admit.
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The companies are to start testing for a state contribution from Monday, but the distribution is still in progress. Where do companies buy those tests? Some approved distributors do not even have their own websites. Are you confident that they can handle the distribution of millions of tests?
This is the second day that the ministry has managed to approve the first two dozen distributors and importers. We will be in contact with them at the weekend, so that by Monday they will give all contact persons. There is a huge interest in it and every day there are several new applications from importers. If they meet the qualitative parameters of the test and at the same time the package leaflets are in Czech, they will be added to the list, negotiations with the distributors of these products will begin immediately.
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Within a few days, it will be in the regular distribution and sales network. Companies will start buying it, we will see if there are enough tests here, similar to what we do with respirators. If everything goes as we expect, there will be a large number of tests here in a week or two, and at that moment we can switch to a system of mandatory testing.
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How will it be controlled?
If a government decree is made, companies are obliged to do so. There will be simple statements. The state pays 60 crowns for a test for employees four times a month, and I can’t imagine that if it is mandatory, companies will not have it paid for by the state. At the end of the month, the company reports the number of tests, shows the results and the health insurance company pays for it.
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How exactly will it be with that post? How fast will the money from insurance companies come?
I assume once a month.
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You said that we were among the first in Europe to test en masse in this way. But didn’t it happen sooner? We have been testing at our company for two months now.
It couldn’t be done before. This is a new thing in other countries where tests are still being certified. In order to do this in the form of a self-test, it must be non-invasive. So far, companies that use partially invasive tests are mainly used with the assistance of healthcare professionals. And we recommend it. They either have it in the company in their own health center, or they can arrange a paramedic there. They can do this even once every three days, it is covered by health insurance and it is the most elegant way.
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On the other hand, it is clear to us that not all companies can do this. If we want to move to a widespread system, we must go the way of self-tests. And those simple self-tests are only available in recent weeks and only in recent days are they allowed to be used freely for the general public. I’m very happy that we succeeded, it will be a monster of action, but I believe that we can do it.
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We’ve been dealing with covid for a year. But only now will we start to protect respirators instead of home scarves and drapes…
We react to the situation. Remember that there were times when respirators were sold for 250 crowns, then they were for a hundred crowns, at the beginning of the year they were sold for higher tens of crowns. Ordering something also means that there will be resources and it will be available. At present, there are enough respirators, it costs around 10 to 20 crowns, there are enough nanoroses. We are thus able to order something with the knowledge that people will be able to buy it. To order the use of a respirator for a hundred crowns, so if they are to be used two a day, it is 6,000 crowns a month, and retirees should not pull it off.
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It must be affordable and affordable. In addition, we are responding to a pandemic situation. There was a time when the situation improved, it was possible to manage with veils, at the moment the situation is more serious and we have new mutations in the virus.
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It is also only now that the support for entrepreneurs is being unified. What will the new system actually be, is it definitely clear in this?
We are trying to simplify existing programs even more. Antivirus continues unchanged. The compensation bonus continues, being double that of the past. This was a fairly significant discussion and agreement with unions and associations. A self-employed person will not receive 15 thousand crowns, but 30 thousand crowns a month, which will cost us up to ten billion a month.
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Then we agreed with the associations to use the most successful programs and make them nationwide. One will be the Covid gastronomy and closed establishment, which is of great interest. Unions and associations wanted an alternative to this program because it is not suitable for some companies. They suggest choosing between this model and a model where we will compensate for the loss. There we will not look at how many employees the entrepreneur has, or what the loss arose from, and we will compensate for it. The entrepreneur then chooses which program to use. We could not start it until the budget was approved. It should be approved within the next week, and we want to finish it with the associations during that week.
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But you have already warned that we barely have support money for a few months. The budget was newly adjusted by a deficit increased to half a trillion crowns. Do you count on further adjustment and deepening of the deficit?
I said that, assuming that the support will be paid out almost a billion crowns a day, which could work with the new programs, so if we recalculate what we still have and what will come from the new budget, it is a matter of half a year. But only if we still go at this rate of support. I anticipate that trade and establishments will begin to be released in the second quarter, and logically there will be a gradual shift from direct support to partly direct and partly indirect such as guarantees.
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The flow of money to companies will start to decrease a bit and then it could last even longer. If the situation did not improve, which I do not think, then it is clear that we would have to continue to pay support to companies, then it would be about changing the budget again. But I don’t want to call that at all.
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