Czech Minister of Health Adam Vojtech yesterday said that he had submitted his resignation following criticism over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the central European nation experiences a surge in cases.
Vojtech said that his move should create space for a new approach to the pandemic.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis thanked Vojtech for his work in a message on Twitter, saying that he could have been remembered as the nation’s best health minister if he did not have to use all his energy to fight the pandemic.
It was not clear who would replace Vojtech, who was under pressure from the opposition to resign.
The nation has reported growth in confirmed COVID-19 cases at Europe’s second-fastest pace, behind Spain, after the nation just before summer lifted almost all the measures taken during the first wave of the pandemic.
In the past 14 days, the Czech Republic has had 193 cases per 100,000 people, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data showed.
The nation’s daily count of new cases on Sunday dropped to 985, the third consecutive day the number decreased, Czech Ministry of Health data showed yesterday.
On Thursday last week, the day-to-day increase of new cases was higher than 3,000.
The overall number of confirmed cases yesterday rose to 49,290 in the nation of 10.7 million, which has recorded 503 deaths since the pandemic began.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was mulling a second lockdown in England.
The UK already has the biggest COVID-19 death toll in Europe — and the fifth-largest in the world — but new cases are rising by at least 6,000 per day, hospital admissions are doubling every eight days and the testing system is buckling.
“The trend in the UK is heading in the wrong direction and we are at a critical point in the pandemic,” Chief Medical Officer for England Chris Whitty said at a news conference yesterday. “We are looking at the data to see how to manage the spread of the virus ahead of a very challenging winter period.”
Additional reporting by AP
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