In an interview with Radiožurnál, you stated that the disease curve is on the verge of exponential growth and, regardless of the introduction and tightening of measures, the number of new cases will increase in the next few weeks. Is it possible to understand your words in such a way that any tightening of measures is useless?
No, the increase has its latency and will take effect several weeks apart. We will undoubtedly not close the whole economy, but those measures that are softer will not really show up in that slowdown for several weeks.
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In recent days, the number of new cases has increased from 500 to about 700. These are record numbers. How do you explain them? Could it have been caused, for example, by the government’s possible laziness, as many critics claim, or by the way in which Prime Minister Andrej Babiš revised the discussed measures?
No, this is a longer-term issue. It is the process of loosening measures and also the epidemic is behaving in some way, especially if the change (loosening of measures) was so extensive. In my opinion, the individual people play a decisive role in this in the way they approach it.
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So you partly attribute this to certain inconsistencies of citizens?
Unfortunately, many people underestimate this today, and this must naturally take the form of spreading so massively.
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You also talked about the need to focus now on maintaining clinical capacity. However, the number of hospitalized is also growing. What can be done to ensure that capacities are not filled?
Clinical capacity is relatively high, but that cannot shake us, because we must see the dynamics that are there. We must aim to avoid letting it into some exponential curves so that capacity is not compromised.
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Now you mean protecting at-risk groups?
Sure. Those groups that have a much higher mortality rate than the rest of the population need to be protected, because otherwise the capacity could be saturated.
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Is that the only thing we can influence in the short term?
No, we will influence other things as well, but we will not influence them completely significantly. With such a massive population outbreak, when there are really many such cases, it is difficult to take the epidemic back immediately by local measures. That certainly cannot succeed, in principle.
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When you mentioned the local measures … Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) and the head of Prague hygienists Zdeňka Jágrová talked about a possible further tightening of measures in the metropolis (a record 221 cases were added in Prague on Tuesday). and restaurants, veils will be mandatory in shops as well. What other tightening can you personally imagine?
I think it could be a variation on the theme of the veil in the interior.
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Veils in public interiors are already mandatory, as are shops. Do you mean extension to, for example, some hairdressing establishments, fitness centers, etc.?
This would be addressed according to the available data on where the transmission occurs most often. In my opinion, these regulations would be extended in this direction.
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