Czech Republic asks China for vaccine

The Czech Republic is asking China for Sinopharm’s vaccine, according to a statement on the Presidential Office’s website. China has decided to “comply with this request immediately,” it said, citing the Czech embassy in Beijing. At the end of February, the EU country spoke of the possibility of importing vaccines from China and Russia.

The Czech Republic is currently one of the countries most severely affected by the CoV pandemic. The hospitals of the country with around eleven million inhabitants recently reported a record number of Covid 19 patients. A total of 8,162 people were hospitalized, the highest level since the pandemic began, according to data from the Ministry of Health. These included more than 1,660 particularly severe cases that require artificial ventilation.

Unproven drugs are used

Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said the crisis scenarios had occurred. There are talks about foreign aid. Germany provides 19 beds – with an option for dozens. Switzerland is ready to send an airplane and take in 20 patients. Poland offered around 200 beds. The Ministry of Health in Prague is also planning to require general practitioners and outpatient specialists to work in hospitals.

In view of the dire situation, largely untested drugs are now to be used on a trial basis. 10,000 packs of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin arrived at the University Hospital in Brno. Prime Minister Andrej Babis had advocated this personally: “We say that we cannot wait for clinical studies, let’s try that.”

In the meantime, large companies have started mass testing of all employees. Over the next two weeks, more than two million workers and employees will be tested at least once. Authorities reported 16,642 new cases within 24 hours yesterday. According to calculations, more than 780 people per 100,000 inhabitants were infected within seven days. There have been nearly 1.3 million confirmed infections and 20,941 deaths since the pandemic began.

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