From Monday, they will open the regime and open some shops. You said that we still can’t talk about disintegration. So when will it happen? On Thursday evening, you were supposed to talk about it with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and the new Minister of Health Petr Arenberger…
It was the first meeting with the Minister of Health, and we agreed on further action and the creation of a group on behalf of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Health, which will now begin to work intensively. At this stage, we are not yet talking about a disintegration system, but rather about the epidemiological conditions under which the activities will take place.
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The Minister is new and must identify with what the parameters will be when things are released. It will probably not follow the current PES scheme, but it will be easier, similar to last spring. There will be intervals between release steps, which will certainly not be shorter than 14 days. And then, depending on the situation and the parameters that the team of the Minister of Health needs to define, we would release certain groups of business, culture or sport.
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So far, however, we do not have an exact timetable, partly because we agreed that it will be a relatively strong impact on Monday, April 12th. Almost half a million children are admitted to schools, the district lockdown and state of emergency end, resulting in a greater degree of freedom. We have to wait at least two weeks to see the consequences.
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Stationery and markets, for example, will open on Monday. Are you sure they won’t close again soon, as it happened after the opening before Christmas?
I wouldn’t call it the first wave of disintegration at all. We are fulfilling what we promised, so we are partially opening kindergartens and the first stage of schools in a rotary form. It is discussed in detail with epidemiologists, it is on their recommendation and there should be no major problem.
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Otherwise, we will do practically nothing unless we take it that we only open selected shops with children’s clothes and shoes, which is to a large extent no significant disintegration. Only some small shops, which are relatively few, will be able to sell and the range in supermarkets will be expanded. We want to give parents the opportunity to buy children’s school equipment and clothes.
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Likewise, stationery is only a small part of 100,000 stores. Then there are more or less craft services, but these are things that were already in the exceptions before the harder lockdown. It is absolutely incomparable with the disintegration in the autumn.
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Now a question about something that everyone was solving at the end of last year. What about buying shoes for children who are oversized?
We did a little better than in the winter. If it is a child under 18 years of age, you will be able to buy shoes with any foot size.
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You say there is no time schedule. Still, which other stores or services could open next time and when?
It is something we are dealing with very non-stop now. Pandemic indicators must be met, as well as how it will be separated in time. Another thing is what will disintegrate, and especially how we incorporate testing or vaccination into it.
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In our opinion, it is important that we no longer delay small services such as hairdressing and the like, but on the other hand it should be supported by testing, whether someone brings a PCR test, an antigen test or a test done on site. That should be in the next wave. We are preparing it now and we should start publishing it next week.
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So will testing be a condition for entering establishments?
I am convinced that this is the right direction. I can’t say now which establishments it will definitely be in, but we will try to run the services so that the possibility is there. Mandatory comprehensive testing in companies has played an extremely positive role. It’s not just that we put 500,000 tests into play every day. People have learned it, companies have managed it, testing has also become a natural part of functioning from a psychological point of view. If it starts to spread to stores, it will have more effects.
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First, we will test some people more often. It shouldn’t be a problem, because everyone is used to it. And by creating a testing system here, we have made a relatively large supply of tests that exceeds demand, and as a result, we have been able to bring the price of tests down. Today, they can be purchased for 70 to 100 crowns, even in retail, if you buy in a larger one, it is even under 70 crowns. It becomes something that is natural and not expensive, and I am convinced that this is the way for some services and even culture and sport.
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Is it planned to have free admission for the vaccinated?
In my opinion, it would make sense, we need to discuss this with the Minister of Health. I believe that those who have been vaccinated, tested or have recently undergone covid could be in a group that could gradually start sharing services. This is what other European countries are doing.
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There was talk of adjusting the obligation to test in companies every five days. Are you still more against it? How would it work?
We are still not convinced that testing every five days would serve its purpose. We must always look at the effect and the cost involved. I’m still waiting for numbers from healthcare professionals to convince us that it would have a greater effect. So far, it’s very intuitive on their part. They say that if we test more often, it will be better.
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Today we test on a weekly basis. In the first round, we thus revealed 0.8 percent of the infected people tested, 0.6 percent in the second round and 0.4 percent in the third. How far would we go in increasing the frequency of testing? Will it be 0.3 percent? And there are objective costs.
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If it were twice a week, it would be an additional 500 to 800 million a month. These are large amounts, and there are the costs of companies that have to pay extra for some tests, in addition, they have to organize it, it is also a cost and some companies may need work.
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So the cost is not just the mentioned additional expenditure of health insurance companies, it would in fact be significantly more. In addition, there is an organizational problem. Some companies cannot do this quite objectively more often. They are already gradually testing their people daily. Today, the Czechia is testing on a mandatory basis like no one in Europe.
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Austria tests a lot, for example…
Yes, but Austria generates those numbers through children in schools, we through workers in companies and the public sphere. When we introduce student testing, we will have the most in all of Europe. I ask whether, at a time when our positivity is declining and we see that it works in companies and companies and authorities are cooperating, whether to continue to tighten the taps and whether it will have a pandemic effect.
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Who controls companies? Are there cases that some companies do not test?
They are controlled by about 400 people from hygiene. Checks have already begun. The vast majority of companies have shown that they responsibly test, they have all the documents. There are companies where there has been a certain degree of dissatisfaction, but these are quite isolated cases. These are not issues of a nature that they do not test, rather it is a matter of reporting.
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