High school and college students don’t go back to school. Fourteen days have passed since the transition to distance learning at secondary and higher education institutions and at the second stage of primary schools, which the government originally announced for two weeks. The closure of theaters or museums was to have the same validity. But none of the restrictions end, because instead of falling, the number of infected people is still growing.
In the middle of the week, the curve of the number of newly infected once fluctuated, but on Friday the situation worsened again. Weekend days have brought a decline, but this is repeated every week, because there are fewer subscriptions overall. There were 7301 more infected on Sunday, which is almost half as much as in the previous Sunday.
The total number of active cases – ie the number of people who became infected but have not yet been cured – is 158,515. This is about half as many as the number of people who have recovered since March 1, when the first cases were confirmed in the Czech Republic. There are 97,381 of them.
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By Sunday evening, there were 5,345 patients with covid-19 in the hospitals, 800 of whom were in severe condition. According to the Ministry of Health, only 31 more hospitalized were added on Sunday, compared to hundreds from the previous days, but the number of patients in severe condition increased the most since Friday – 28.
By Sunday, 2,201 people infected with covid-19 had died in the Czech Republic, and 71 more were killed on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Health. For the second time since the beginning of the week, the number of deaths has fallen below 100, but the Ministry of Health usually updates the data on the number of victims retrospectively, so there is a risk that the final number will turn out to be higher. The worst day so far was Wednesday, October 21, when 121 infected people died.
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There are thousands of infected medics. Another backup hospital is being established in Brno
The new type of coronavirus is also spreading among healthcare professionals, of which, according to the president of the Czech Medical Chamber, Milan Kubek, about 13,000 are now infected. In an interview with Czech Radio, Radiožurnál Kubek specified that 6,000 cases are the most infected among nurses. 2600 doctors are currently infected, and another 4,500 are infected by other health professionals.
“Unfortunately, they are not recovering yet, because it is the paramedics who have become infected in this current wave that is rolling into hospitals,” said the head of the radio chamber.
During October, the number of infected paramedics more than increased fivefold; at the beginning of the month, about two and a half thousand of them were positive for covid-19, including 600 doctors and a thousand nurses. “About a thousand medics get sick every day,” Kubek said. The head of the medical chamber asked for the help of a doctor who works abroad. He said that so far 25 of them had heard his call. “They are mostly doctors who have experience in treating severe patients with covid-19,” he specified.
Healthcare faces a shortage of people, but also the risk of losing beds. The army is therefore building a backup hospital. From Sunday, it is ready to launch a field hospital, which was established in the pavilions of the exhibition center in Letňany, Prague. On Monday, the construction of another backup hospital in the premises of the Brno Exhibition Center began. It should offer 302 beds.
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Unlike the Prague hospital, however, the Brno hospital does not build it. “Originally, we planned – because it was a city project – that it would be for the citizens of Brno. However, at Friday’s meeting, we agreed that it will serve the citizens of the entire South Moravian Region, “said Brno Mayor Markéta Vaňková (ODS). She added that if capacity problems arose in other regions and in Brno, on the other hand, there were free beds left, other patients could also lie down at the exhibition center. The hospital at the Brno Exhibition Center will be fully ready for operation after two weeks.
Vaňková emphasized that the city is able to pay for the construction of a hospital, which will cost two million crowns, but not the operation. He expects to be under the direction of the operator, which will be the Brno University Hospital, or health insurance companies. The teaching hospital should supply doctors and nurses to the backup hospital, the auxiliary medical staff could be volunteers who are looking for the Czech Red Cross.
The government will negotiate further tightening of the rules
The number of people infected, in severe condition and dead is growing rapidly despite the measures announced by the government in recent weeks – in the Czech Republic, schools are closed except kindergartens, restaurants and since last Thursday most shops and services except grocery stores or drugstores. In addition, a partial one applies prohibition of free movement, which has many exceptions, people can go to work, shopping, but also for nature walks and can go to cottages, although the government has stipulated that in such a case, only two people can meet.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (YES) announced that the government would tighten the rules further. “So far, it seems that the measures that the government has put in place are not working. The mobility of people is still high, we still have a large number of people who do not want to comply with the measures, “he said. Babiš did not specify the scope of possible new measures, but the Minister of Health Roman Prymula (for YES) said during the implementation of the previous wave of measures that the next step could be the abolition of the current exemptions from bans on the sale and operation of services.
The president of the Czech Medical Chamber, Milan Kubek, also called for tightening. According to him, a strict lockdown is needed, because hospitals are becoming overloaded. “We will expect serious regional problems this week. Colleagues in the Zlín Region, for example in Uherské Hradiště, are fighting to the last, “he said.
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The government will act from 2 pm on Monday, and Prymula, who is still the Minister of Health, should also arrive at the meeting. Prime Minister Babiš said on Friday that a new minister should already attend Monday’s cabinet meeting. He called for the resignation of Prymul after the daily Blesk published photographs, which showed that Prymula found himself in the premises of a restaurant in Vyšehrad after the announcement of restrictions on movement and at a time when restaurants and most shops had to be closed.
Prymula originally refused to resign, stating that he was not in the restaurant, but the buildings of the Vyšehrad Chapter connected to it. On Sunday, however, he admitted that he would resign, but first his successor must be known.
There will be no big Christmas markets in Prague this year
The coronavirus pandemic in the Czech Republic will also fundamentally affect pre-Christmas shopping. Prague councilor Jan Chabr (TOP 09 / United Forces) said that there would be no large markets and accompanying events in the city. According to Chabr, the markets must be closed down this year because it is a social event that brings together a large number of people.
“For this reason, given the epidemiological situation, it would probably be very inappropriate to hold Christmas markets and prepare them to the extent and size we are used to from previous years,” he said.
To a limited extent, however, Advent events will take place, and Prague will have a Christmas tree erected on the Old Town Square even without markets. “If the epidemiological situation allows it, we are ready to add several decent small stalls, however, at the moment we do not count on the classic variant of Christmas markets,” added Chabr.
The disease is spreading the fastest in the Zlín and Hradec Králové regions
The worst affected region remains the Zlín Region. Two of its four districts have over a thousand infected people per hundred thousand in the last seven days. Due to the number of inhabitants in the Zlín region, the situation is the worst in the whole republic, there are 1097 infected per hundred thousand inhabitants in the last week. There are 1,053 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants in the Vsetín region. The Uherské Hradiště region is also approaching the thousand limit, 961 of the hundred thousand inhabitants of the district have become infected in the last week.
Infection is also increasing rapidly in the Hradec Králové region. On Sunday, the region recorded the most new cases from the whole country, 813 more. In the much more populous Moravian-Silesian region there were 812 positive tests on Sunday, in Prague 745. The Hradec Králové district is also the only district in the Czech Republic where more than a thousand infected per hundred thousand inhabitants (1036). In the Trutnov and Náchod regions there were over 900 cases per hundred thousand inhabitants in seven days, the situation is relatively better in the Jičín and Rychnov regions.
The share of infected seniors over the age of 65 has also been growing in the last week. In the Břeclav and Znojmo regions in particular, over a quarter of those infected fell into this category in the last week. In the rest of the country, the proportion of seniors among all people infected with coronavirus is usually between 10 and 20 percent.
