All shops, markets and selected services will reopen on Monday, May 3, if Covid-19 numbers continue to fall, said the Minister of Trade and Industry Karel Havlíček (ANO). On Thursday afternoon, the Czech government discussed a plan to relax measures against coronavirus. “If the favorable trend continues, we will allow the reopening of the rest of shops, markets, and other services,” wrote Havlíček on Twitter. Some spas and also museums and galleries can also reopen if there is no rise in cases. He added that such changes will occur if the number of cases fell to below 100 per 100,000 inhabitants weekly. The figure on Wednesday dropped to 177 and is down from over 400 at the end of March. Another phase including opening restaurant terraces, outdoor performances, hotels and allowing outdoor sports in groups – all with capacity limits – could happen when the infection rate falls below 75 per 100,000. In an initial easing of restrictions, first- to fifth-graders returned to classrooms while libraries and a limited amount of retail shops opened on April 12. The health ministry recorded 2,942 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, down from 3,714 cases on the same day in the previous week and...
Czech general practitioners will receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against coronavirus on Thursday as the distributor on Wednesday assesses the authenticity of the jabs and prepares them for delivery. The company Avenier is in charge of the deliveries of the Johnson & Johnson and Moderna vaccines. The Health Ministry tasked it on Tuesday evening to start distributing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. “The supplies into particular GPs’ surgeries across the Czech Republic are scheduled as of Thursday morning,” Nesrsta said. Deliveries of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine started on April 12 to member states in a boost to the continent’s vaccination efforts. The U.S. company has committed to delivering to the EU by the end of June 55 million doses and another 120 million in the third quarter, EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton said this month. The single-dose vaccine was shown to have a 72% efficacy rate in the United States in preventing symptomatic illness and an 85% efficacy rate in preventing the most severe disease 28 days after vaccination. The Czech Republic administered 51,199 Covid-19 vaccine doses on Tuesday, nearly one-fifth less than last Tuesday and the lowest workday amount in almost two weeks, while there were 3,787...
Sultan Khamzaev, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and chief executive of the project Sober Russia, proposed to ban Czech beer on Russian territory as a reaction to the expulsion of eighteen diplomats on Saturday. In his opinion, such a measure will make Czech political groups realize that their statements and actions will have economic repercussions for the entire country. Russians, according to Khamzaev, will be able to live without a beverage, and the embargo will help reduce the alcohol consumption among the population. “In Russia, people consume about eight billion liters of beer annually, including a certain percentage of Czech beer. We need to ban it and let them consume it there themselves,” Khamzaev asserted in an interview with the radio station Moscow Speaks. A number of Russian politicians spoke out against the proposal. They consider the measure to be childish, inefficient, and potentially pernicious for Russia. “I am always very suspicious of such initiatives. What will it lead to? What does beer and all these conflicts have to do with it?” said Andrey Panferov, First Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Novosibirsk Oblast. “Time will pass and everything will fall into place. And...
The impact of the first phase of resumption of work of establishments will be evaluated, and the future reopening schedule will be presented, said Karel Havlíček, Minister of Industry and Trade. Last Monday marked the first phase of easing of previously introduced restrictions. The government decided to implement the so-called rotational learning for pupils of the first grade of primary schools. Preschoolers could attend kindergartens once again, and special schools returned to normal teaching. Children’s clothing and footwear shops, stationery stores and some services such as locksmiths, dry cleaners, and laundries had welcomed their customers for the first time in months. If the pandemic situation develops well, the government will present the plan for the reopening of other facilities. According to Havlíček, the cabinet is to wait for ten days from April 12th to assess whether the measures taken were adequate. “If the situation develops well and if the incidence goes to the key threshold that we have agreed upon – that is 100 [cases] per week for 100,000 people, we are ready to present the system of loosening of restrictions in regard to shops and services on Thursday,” Minister said. “On Thursday, the government will meet to assess the...
Beer consumption in the Czech republic was badly affected by the coronavirus last year, the country’s brewing body said Tuesday. The amount consumed annually on average by each person in the country dropped by 7 liters to 135 liters, the Czech Union of brewers said. It´s the lowest figure since the 1960s, according to the union. Frantisek Samal, the head of the union, said up to 500 pubs were forced to close for good, and hundreds more are expected to follow suit this year. “I don’t remember a time when pubs and restaurants were in such crisis,” Samal said. The Czech Republic might be the world’s 86th largest country in terms of its population, but it ranks 19th in total beer consumption, according to the most recent Global Beer Consumption Report, published by Kirin at the end of 2020. The country’s world-beating per-person average beer consumption hit 188.6 liters in 2019, outpacing Austria, in second place, by more than 80 liters per person. Bars and restaurants were closed for months after the pandemic hit the country in March last year, while the ban on drinking alcohol in public and the cancellation of sports, cultural and other events also contributed to...
Czech Television journalist Nora Fridrichová has launched a charitable initiative called Šatník (The Wardrobe). The project began in early March and has already received massive interest from the public. Šatník will accept donations of clothing, shoes toiletries, toys, appliances, and sports equipment to be given to single-parent families in need. Donations are not limited to those living in Prague. Now that the restrictions on movement between zones has been lifted, those living in surrounding regions can come to collect donations after registering and being approved. Šatník is currently headquartered in Prague at the Kasarna Karlín, a former a military outpost more recently used to house cultural events. A spokesperson stated, “We can’t show or play theater in our hall right now – but we have a great replacement! Fridrichková is known to be a longtime advocate for single people and has even inspired a similar initiative in Pilsen called Girls for Girls which also offers a wardrobe of donations for single-parent families. “We got the idea to set it up at about the same time as, for example, in Prague, the presenter of the Czech Television program 168 Hours, Nora Fridrichová. And when we published information that we were preparing it,...
Russia on Sunday expelled 20 Czech diplomats in retaliation for a slew of diplomatic expulsions by Prague and gave the affected Czech diplomats just over 24 hours to leave the country, the RIA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying. Prague had on Saturday ordered out 18 Russian diplomats, prompting Russia to vow on Sunday to “force the authors of this provocation to fully understand their responsibility for destroying the foundation of normal ties between our countries”. The October 16, 2014, blast in Vrbetice, in the eastern Czech region of Zlin, set off 50 metric tons of stored ammunition, killing two people. Two months later, another blast of 13 tons of ammunition occurred at the same site. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the attack had been aimed at a shipment to a Bulgarian arms trader. “This was an attack on ammunition that had already been paid for and was being stored for a Bulgarian arms trader,” he said on Czech Television. Bulgarian prosecutors charged three Russian men in 2020 with an attempt to kill arms trader Emilian Gebrev, who was identified by Czech media as the same individual. Reuters was unable to reach Gebrev for comment. Czech police...
The European Union has agreed on increasing vaccine supplies from the Pfizer/BioNTech company to the member states. “We have just agreed with BioNTech-Pfizer to once again speed up vaccine delivery in the European Union,” the head of the European Commission wrote on Twitter. Vaccine deliveries in the second quarter will increase by 50 million doses, or a quarter, to a total of 250 million doses, according to von der Leyen. The Czech Republic should receive about 1.2 million doses. The country would otherwise get these vaccines by the end of the year, but now, according to Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the country will receive them in April, May, and June. The supply and distribution of vaccines in the European Union long-term contend with difficulties and delays, which earned the European Commission sharp criticism as it has concluded contracts with vaccine manufacturers. The vaccine produced by the United States and a German company could compensate European states for other companies’ supply disruptions. The head of the European Commission has admitted that, in addition to restricting supplies from AstraZeneca, the suspension of Johnson & Johnson’s distribution due to health complications in the United States is also causing problems. “That is why it...
The Czech Republic says it will expel 18 Russian diplomats, alleging that Russian intelligence officers – all those identified as SVR and GRU agents. Prime Minister Andrej Babis said Saturday that the Czech intelligence agencies provided clear evidence about the involvement of Russian military agents in the explosion of 50 tonnes of munitions at a depot in Vrbětice in October 2014 in which two people died. Czech police’s organised crime unit had worked on the case for several years in cooperation with the BIS counterintelligence service and the Brno Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office. “The explosion led to huge material damage and posed a serious threat to the lives of many local people, but above all it killed two of our fellow citizens, fathers of families,” Babis said. Babis added the Czech Republic is a sovereign state and must react to those findings. Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, who is also serving as the foreign minister, said those 18 Russian embassy staffers were clearly identified as Russian military spies and were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. Hamacek said he had summoned Russian ambassador Alexander Zmeyevsky on Saturday evening to tell him about the decision. In 2014, a series of...
Czech police are investigating the theft of an entire chata from an allotment garden in Starovicky, South Moravia. A chata is a small cabin built not for full-time living, as most of them do not have plumbing, but rather for recreation. The missing building was 3.5 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 2 meters high. It served as a resting place for the owner when he works in the garden. “The property is completely gone, only the concrete base with some pieces of furniture are still there,” said David Chaloupka, a spokesman for the South Moravian police. Due to the size of the building, it is likely that someone could have spotted the thief. “Potential witnesses should call the police on 974632741,” Chaloupka added.
People aged 40 or over in the Czech Republic will be invited to get a Covid jab at the end of June, Health Minister Petr Arenberger has said. “At the end of May or the latest beginning of June, we can vaccinate 100,000 people a day. Registrations for the over-40 age group could also open by the end of June,” he added. People above the age of 65 can start registration for Covid-19 vaccine starting today 14 April. Meanwhile, the reproduction number dropped below 1 after two days again, data from the health ministry show. The reproduction number R stands for the people infected by one positive person. If it is above 1.00, the epidemic is gaining momentum, while figures below it imply it is receding. Experts say the recent mild growth was caused by fewer tests carried out during Easter. Today, the reproduction number dropped from 0.92 to 0.80. Latest statistics The health ministry recorded 3,238 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, a down from 5,281 cases on the same day last week. The official death toll has risen to 28,317, rising by 88 on the day, which also includes revisions to previous days, according to ministry data. The Czech...
The Czech Republic wants to buy around 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine ditched by Denmark, which has said it will stop using it because of concerns about rare blood clotting side effects. Czech deputy prime minister Jan Hamacek said on Twitter that he had instructed the country’s ambassador in Denmark to try to buy the unwanted doses. Hamacek is also going to travel to Moscow to arrange deliveries of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine once it is approved by the European Medicines Agency. Denmark has stopped handing out the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine, becoming the first European country to do so because of concerns about very rare blood clotting side-effects. The move follows advice from the European Medicines Agency last week that announced a possible link with blood clots, although the regulator said that the risk of dying of COVID-19 was far higher. Several European countries had temporarily suspended the jab but most have reinstated it following the EMA’s advice, albeit with restrictions on its use in younger people where the risk of blood clots seems to be higher. Danish officials said that all 2.4 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine would be withdrawn until further notice. They...
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