With new infections soaring due to a highly contagious COVID-19 variant and hospitals filling up, one of the hardest-hit countries in the EU is facing the inevitable: the tightest lockdown since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis on Friday said the new series of measures is necessary “to protect the lives of our citizens.”
“We have to do it prevent a total collapse of our hospitals,” Babis said. “If we don’t do it, the whole world will watch Bergamo in the Czech Republic.”
Photo: AP
He said his government made mistakes in dealing with the pandemic in the past, but called on the Czechs to abide by the rules that are becoming effective tomorrow for three weeks, with a goal “to stop the virus and return to normalcy.”
Among the strictest restrictions, the government is set to limit free movement of people by not allowing them to travel to other counties unless they go to work or have to take care about their relatives.
“If it’s possible, stay at home,” Czech Minister of the Interior Jan Hamacek said.
Hamacek said the measure would be enforced by police and military forces.
If people go out for sports or just a walk, they should not leave their municipality.
Further measures include the closure of nursery schools and schools for children with disabilities that until now have remained open.
Only the stores with essential goods are to remain open.
“It’s not the best timing, it is in fact late,” Jan Konvalinka, a biochemist and vice rector of Prague’s Charles University, told Czech public radio. “But better late than never, we have to stop it somehow.”
Konvalinka is a member of a group of scientists who have urged the government to immediately apply strict restrictions to reduce the number of new daily infections to 1,000 confirmed cases.
It was 14,457 on Thursday, about 2,750 more than a week earlier.
Czech Minister of Health Jan Blatny said the new cases might likely surge to about 20,000 a day in next week before the new measures make an effect.
Amid a surge of the variant first identified in the UK, of the 7,176 coronavirus patients in Czech hospitals on Thursday, a record 1,531 needed intensive care.
Another potentially dangerous variant first detected in South Africa has also been confirmed in the country this week.
To help the struggling health system and prevent a collapse, the government has been discussing with Germany and Poland an option to send Czech COVID-19 patients to their hospitals for treatment.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases has risen over the past two weeks from 68.83 new cases per 100,000 people on Feb. 11 to 99.94 on Thursday, the worst per capita rate in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The nation of 10.7 million has had more than 1.2 million confirmed cases, with more than 20,000 deaths.
In an attempt to boost the vaccination program, the Czech Republic has approached EU nations and others asking them for vaccines for which they do not have immediate use.
Babis said France has agreed to send 100,000 doses by the middle of next month.
About 5,000 Moderna doses have been donated by Israel, a close ally.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of