The Czech government asked other EU countries to send a portion of their vaccines against Covid-19 to assist Czech hospitals which are rapidly running out of intensive care beds. The news comes from three high-ranking sources confirmed by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. There is a risk that hospitals across the country will not be able to take care of all patients. “I am discussing how the improve the situation in the Czech Republic basically continuously,” wrote Babiš. “It is necessary to tighten up the measures, otherwise in the next two to three weeks, we will have huge problems in the healthcare system. The government will meet again in the evening,” he said. PM Babis added that Israel was donating 5,000 doses to his country after a request for assistance. He said the Moderna vaccines would be given to 2,500 soldiers assisting in Czech hospitals. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan confirmed that “Guatemala, Honduras, the Czech Republic, and Hungary — nations that have all provided strong diplomatic backing to Netanyahu’s hard-line government in recent years, will receive soon the vaccines.” Latest statistics The health ministry recorded 15,672 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, up from 12,601 cases a week earlier and the highest daily...
Czech Airlines told Labor Office that plans to lay off all its 430 employees. As Hospodářské noviny reports, Smartwings Group, which owns Czech Airlines, had been profitable before the pandemic broke out and they are expected to return to profitability once it subsides. “I can confirm that we have received a notice of mass redundancies,” said Tereza Löffelmanová, chairwoman of the Aircraft Crews Trade Union. According to the SeznamZprávy, Smartwings and CSA are currently under a protective moratorium against creditors. It expires at the end of February. The air group is asking the state for help because of this. For CSA, it wants non-repayable support of 1.1 billion crowns. According to groups, the carrier is waiting for insolvency proceedings because airlines are not entitled to support from other subsidy programs. The group is also asking the state for half a billion in compensation for canceled flights last spring. But the state is not going to help. “We are not preparing any specific support for the Smartwings Group,” said Minister of Transport and Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček. Last summer, CSA announced a plan to reduce the number of employees by more than 300 by February this year. CSA recorded a loss...
Czech freediver David Vencl has set a world record in men’s swimming under the ice. David Vencl swam the longest distance of 80.9 meters holding his breath on Tuesday. Vencl took one minute 35 seconds for the record at a lake in Lahost in the northern Czech Republic. Organizers said the ice was at least 30 centimeters thick, a condition for the record to be recognized. “The problem is not distance, but cold,” explained the extreme athlete, who has been training for the record for a long time. For safety, Vencl swam attached to a rope and was accompanied by divers with breathing equipment. There were about five holes in the ice in the event of an emergency. David Vencl represents the Czech Republic in scuba diving, in which he has won the national title and holds several records. The previous record was 76.2 meters by Stig Severinsen of Denmark in April 2013, according to the Guinness World Records. The record for the longest swim under the ice was first set at 57.5 meters by the famed Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof in 2000.
The situation surrounding the COVID-19 disease in the Czech Republic is critical and the healthcare system is under immense strain. Hospital bed capacity “is close to its absolute limits, primarily due to a lack of personnel”, said Deputy Health Minister and hospital bed coordinator Vladimír Černý at a press conference on Tuesday. The lack of qualified personnel means that the ministry is not considering activating a field hospital in Brno, Mr. Černý said. Dozens of new intensive care beds are being set up in Prague at the moment, according to the deputy health minister. Dozens of new intensive care beds are being set up in Prague at the moment. The field hospital The Czech army erected a field hospital in the northern Prague district of Letňany in October and put the facility on standby, equipped to care for as many as 500 COVID-19 patients. But because of the lack of available staff, the field hospital has been packed up at the end of January. The hospital was designed to treat less acute COVID cases so other hospitals can focus on treating the most severely ill. The main section of the hospital had ten separate sections, each with 50 beds. They...
The coronavirus pandemic has hit Czech education particularly hard. Compared to the rest of Europe, Czech children have been studying from home for the longest period of time, and thousands of them have dropped out of the education system completely. The autumn wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit the Czech Republic much harder than the spring one, but the data about school closures in the European Union does not reflect that. While countries in which the pandemic killed tens of thousands of people in the spring opened schools in the autumn and remained so until the end of the year, Czechia switched to distance learning in large parts of spring and autumn. The UNESCO data, as well as data from individual EU countries, reveal the record-length of remote learning in the Czech Republic. Statistics also show other Czech specifics, such as the different approaches to the 1st and 2nd grades in elementary education. While most states returned the entire first stages of elementary schools to full-time teaching, followed by the second stages in a week or two, the Czech Republic did so only with those first two grades in the first stage. The situation where first and second-graders go to...
Due to the ongoing spread of the British mutation and deteriorating epidemiological situation in the Czech Republic, the Ministry of Health issued an order to make the wearing of respirators or two surgical masks mandatory in shops, hospitals, public transport, and places with a higher concentration of people. However, the new rule will apply from Thursday, and not as originally from Monday (February 22) at midnight. There is a great demand for FFP2 type respirators, which are sold out in some locations. Representatives of medical supplies companies said that stocks are gradually being replenished. Latest statistics The health ministry recorded 4,002 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday, a jump of around 1,100 from a week ago. The official death toll from COVID-19 has reached 19,330, a daily rise of 413 which includes deaths from Sunday and revisions to previous days, according to ministry data. In total, 1.157 million infections have been recorded since March 2020. Current hospitalizations rose to 6,049, more than double the government’s target level. The ministry reported 545,381 vaccine shots have been administered.
Around 6,800 properties had been sold on the Bezrealitky in 2020, which has in turn successfully attracted new types of customers looking for a simple and facile platform to sell, buy, rent, and rent out properties. Bezrealitky’s offer to let their clientele manage their own property operations, instead of relying on a real estate agent is also proving to be attractive to customers. Because of the platform’s success, they’ve now added a new service to encompass more of potential customers’ needs. They will launch a new ‘Comfort’ service, which will enable the sale or purchase of a turnkey property. Turnkey properties are fully renovated homes or apartment buildings that an investor can immediately buy and rent out. Bezrealitky will offer a team of specialists for various processes – from assistance with inspections, pre-selection of applicants, technical inspection of properties, photography and legal services. Consequently, the property owner does not pay anything for the Comfort service. The price of the service, fixed in advance and individually determined, is therefore deducted from the final above-standard sales price. Moreover, purchasing real-estate directly through Bezrealitky’s service is quite a profitable solution, since the services of sales specialists will be jointly provided by Bezrealitky and...
Three German cities awarded Škoda Transportation a contract to deliver ForCity Plus low-floor trams under a pan-European tender announced by the three companies of public transport. The contract, which has a total value of CZK 3 billion crowns, covers the delivery of 24 low-floor trams and includes an option for 21 additional vehicles. Frankfurt an der Oder, Brandenburg an der Havel and Cottbus are the three cities that will receive ForCity Plus vehicles to replace the existing high-floor trams, which are nearing the end of their service life. The vehicles will be delivered in two widths because, despite a large number of identical requirements and conditions, there are also a number of individual requirements of each city. Under the contract, Škoda Transportation will deliver 13 trams to Frankfurt, four will go to Brandenburg an der Havel, and the remaining seven were ordered by Cottbus. The new trams will increase the attractiveness of public transport in all these three cities. The ForCity Plus low-floor trams will be low-floor and are therefore also ideal for people with reduced mobility. The new vehicles will be air-conditioned and barrier-free, will have multifunctional spaces for prams, wheelchairs and bicycles. The new trams will have an...
The Czech Republic has ordered 12,000 doses of an antibody treatment made by Regeneron ahead of its registration by European authorities and will start receiving it in March. Czech authorities are close to clearing emergency use of Regeneron’s cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab, which was authorized for emergency use in the United States in November, and was given to then U.S. President Donald Trump during his COVID-19 infection. “We have managed to order Regeneron,” Babis said on Twitter. “In total, 12,000 doses. Four thousand will come in March, the same in April and May.” The treatment is aimed at patients with mild to moderate disease who are at risk of their condition worsening. COVID-19 antibody therapies, by Regeneron and rival Eli Lilly, are given through one-time intravenous infusion and require patients to be isolated. This complexity has led to lackluster demand for the drugs. The Czech Republic has also granted emergency approval to Eli Lilly’s therapy and ordered 500 doses. Europe’s drugs regulator EMA said on Feb. 4 it was reviewing data on both therapies for use in some patients. Italy has given emergency-use approval to the two therapies. The Czech Republic has reported 19,097 deaths. Daily infections have risen...
Dust and sand particles whipped up from the Sahara will once again blanket skies over Europe this weekend, impacting air quality, the European Union’s Copernicus satellite monitoring service said on Friday. It said wind predictions showed a “substantial plume” of Saharan dust would hit southern Europe over the weekend into next week, reaching as far north as Norway. Mark Parrington, senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, said that like a similar event earlier in February, the dust would likely be visible to the naked eye in the skies across Europe. The highest concentration of sand is expected in the east of Spain and the south of France. In smaller quantities, it will reach the UK, Norway, and Central Europe, including the Czech Republic. The “high concentrations” of dust would affect air quality and could have some health impacts. Mark Parrington, Senior Scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service comments: “We monitored similar events in the past weeks with significant air quality impacts in the affected regions, which were confirmed by surface measurements from the countries gathered by the European Environment Agency.” “We expect this will also be the case for the upcoming event, although it is not...
Patients with a mild course of covid-19 could be placed in gyms in case hospitals are nearing their capacity limit. Should the spread of the infection get worse the government may also order specialists in outpatient clinics and medical students to help out in hospitals. In several regions, hospitals that are full have been transferring patients to a decreasing number of less-strained facilities. The government said earlier this week it might ask neighboring Germany to take in patients if the situation worsens further, despite earlier rejecting calls from the most pressured border regions to do so. “We already have selected several gyms and one dormitory where we can place those patients if necessary,” said Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib. At the end of October, when the Czech army built the Letňany hospital, there were around 7,000 covid patients hospitalized, while at the beginning of November there were over eight thousand. As of Friday, 14% of intensive care and high dependence beds were available across the country, including 149 places for COVID patients. The number of those hospitalized in a serious condition has reached 1,258, above a previous peak in November.
On Monday, the Ministry of Health will order the wearing of FFP2 respirators, nano-filtered face masks or two surgical facemasks in public transport and other public places, said Minister of Health Jan Blatný (ANO) after the government meeting. Home-made face masks or scarves will no longer be acceptable. “The list of places will be specified on Monday in a new decree,” he added. FFP2 masks – also known as respirators – have higher filtering capabilities than surgical masks, and since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, they have been mostly set aside for frontline health workers most exposed to aerosols, or tiny airborne particles of the virus. From Monday, February 22 on, if you get on a bus, train or tram, you need to wear a so-called “medical mask”. It is also recommended that you wear a medical mask in any situation where you might have sustained or close contact with other people – for example, at work, or in busy outside areas. What’s the difference between surgical masks, fabric masks and FFP2 masks? Surgical masks Disposable face masks, such as surgical or medical masks (pictured in the main photograph), are not respirators and do not protect the wearer from breathing...
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