According to Minister of Health Jan Blatný, the Czech government hopes to vaccinate 5.5 million people by the end of summer 2021. “If everything goes as planned, the vaccination of about 5.5 million people, which is about 60-70 percent of the adult population, should be completed at the end of next summer,” the minister said. So far, the government has provided for the vaccination of 5.5 million people, which will cost some 3.4 billion CZK. They can still order vaccinations for up to 10.6 million more people as well. So far, no vaccine has been officially approved in the EU, so Czechia has ordered doses from several manufacturers. The vaccination of all Czechs could cost up to 5 billion korunas (€187.7 million) if two doses are needed. The minister confirmed to the deputies that the strategy first plans for the vaccination of people over 60 years of age, those most at risk, people with chronic diseases, and healthcare workers on the front line, which represents thousands to tens of thousands of people. They will receive their dose at a vaccination center or their GP. The vaccine will be paid for via public health insurance, and vaccination will not be compulsory. It...
Saint Nicholas day took on some new twists for celebrating Czechs on Saturday, from drive-through visits to kitting his accompanying angels and devils out in gloves and masks so that they could hand out treats. The Czech version of the holiday includes Saint Nicholas visiting with an angel and devil to reward well-behaved children with sweets and less angelic ones with a lump of coal or a potato. But rules limiting social contact due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant the usual custom of costumed trios roaming Czech neighbourhoods to greet children was given a make-over. At one outdoor site on the top level of a shopping mall parking lot, horned devils danced around a car to scare the children inside before an angel swept with a bag of sweets. The Czech government advised families to scale back or even forego the holiday as social distancing rules require masks to be worn inside and no large gatherings outdoors. After curbing one of Europe’s fastest spreads of coronavirus, and despite fears the re-opening could lead to a surge of infections, Czechs cooped up for weeks headed eagerly out to shops, hairdressers, restaurants and pubs allowed to open with capacity requirements this week....
The exhibition Českoland, invented by graphic designer and satirist Tomáš Břínek, also known under pseudonym TMBK, is reopening in the underground of Hotel Pyramida in Prague after a 2-month break. Visitors can expect to see Andrej Babiš in a jail cell, listen to fortunes told by oracle Jolanda, or experience the iconic “bába pod kořenem” incident first-hand. The exhibition will be open to the public until the 31st of December. Preparation for the exhibition began in winter of last year when the internet’s comedy legend who goes by the pseudonym TMBK launched a fundraiser for its realization on Hithit.cz site, where he managed to raise almost 1.5 million CZK. The motto of the fundraising is “The more we raise, the nicer a prison we build for Andrej.” Not only did they fulfill every last word of this promise, but they also managed to create a number of other bizarre installations of the widest variety. “Look out for statues, reliefs, moving figurines, collages, videos, holograms, and naive silliness. Its featured personalities, including Zeman, could be both offended and flattered. It’s a big deal,” an enthusiastic TMBK describes. The exhibition is taking place in the underground spaces of the Orea Hotel Pyramida...
On Monday, 7 December 2020, the mayor of Prague Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) will take part in POLITICO 28, an annual ranking of the people with the greatest impact on politics and policy-making in Europe. Among the winners in three different categories, there are also the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán, the French President Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson, the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the writer J. K. Rowling. The winners of each category will be announced at noon today (Monday, December 7th), as well as the general winner, the most influential European of 2020. “The POLITICO 28 is our guide to the most influential people in Europe to watch in 2021,” said Stephan Faris, enterprise editor at POLITICO, who led the project. “The only criteria is relevance – but that doesn’t mean the list doesn’t contain any surprises. Power in Europe is scattered among a large number of offices and institutions. It’s also constantly in flux, as new players flex their muscles, strike up unlikely alliances or stumble and fall.” The ranking is divided into three categories: Doers: The leaders whose train of energy and affect — or inaction — will drive...
The Czech Ministry of Health said that the PES risk score increased by seven points, from 57 to 64. As iDNES.cz reports, this number corresponds to the fourth level in the coronavirus emergency system. The government could be forced to tighten the preventive measures if this number does not decrease in the next three days. “The increase was due to two factors: an increase in the share of positive cases and especially an increase in the reproductive number above one,” added the Ministry of Health. On Sunday, there were 3,308 confirmed new coronavirus cases in the Czech Republic, 641 more than a week ago, Ministry of Health data show. The PES is calculated from the reproduction number (now at 1.02), the rate of positive test results over the past seven days, the total number of cases, and those among seniors. The new data changed the scores in several regions. For example, in the Ústí region it rose from 69 to 76 points. The decrease is recorded in the Vysočina region, where the score decreased from 62 to 57. The index in the Moravian-Silesian Region remained the same as on Saturday at 66. The same score is registered in the Olomouc...
Czech police found several restaurants and bars that were open after 22:00 this Friday, violating the government order. Health Minister Jan Blatny labeled this behavior as “unacceptable” and “irresponsible”. According to Blatny, “the Czech Republic is on the border between the third and fourth PES level, and if the situation worsens, there is a risk that restaurants and bars will have to close again”. “The exact number of violations, as well as how exactly the measures were violated, will become known only after the weekend,” said a spokeswoman for the Czech police, Kateryna Rendlova. “Unfortunately, some restaurant and club operators are very irresponsible. In many cases, police officers found catering establishments that were open after 22:00. Club owners closed their facilities after a police warning only to reopen once law enforcement left the scene.” On Friday, the Health Minister described the epidemic situation as “very fragile”. “I don’t want to scare our citizens, but we are still on the borderline between the third and fourth level.” In October, Prague officers discovered dozens of people beneath a restaurant on Vodičková Street. The restaurant was found to be closing its front doors and moving the clientele downstairs once the curfew kicked in...
One of the fastest-growing categories on the online supermarket Rohlik.cz is coffee. Sales grew 1.5 times faster during the spring and autumn corona crisis than for the same period. “For us, our cooperation with Rohlik.cz is a pilot project on the territory of the Czech Republic to expand our sales channels. What we want is for the customer to be able to order choice Nespresso capsules with home delivery within just 120 minutes, with a delivery accuracy of 15 minutes,” said Nespresso’s Marketing Manager Andrea Petrová about the cooperation. Thus, the key benefit of cooperating with Rohlik.cz is the delivery of an order to a customer within 2 hours of ordering and the simultaneous collection of used capsules for recycling. Moreover, members of the loyalty program Nespresso & You don’t lose any of the advantages through buying capsules on Rohlik.cz – since the cooperation also includes earning points on the customer’s Nespresso account for each purchase. “We are delighted with the cooperation with the Nespresso brand. And there are several reasons. Through it we will expand the premium selection of high-quality coffee that our customers will be able to order along with other items from the Rohlik.cz range, that means...
Over the weekend, police stopped a man in Prague 10 who violated a night curfew. Later on, they found out he had a container with the word ořechy (nuts) in his bag, but instead of dried fruit, he had several hundred grams of meth inside. The police patrol spotted the suspicious man in Granátnická Street (Prague-Štěrboholy) just before three o’clock in the morning. “They asked him why he was not respecting the night curfew restriction,” said police spokesman Jan Daněk. A few minutes later, police found a plastic jar in his bag, but the contents had nothing to do with nuts. Inside police officers found 358 grams of meth with a purity of 77 percent. “The man still tried to dump the jar full of drugs, but the police prevented it. The 36-year-old man ended up in the police station,” Daněk added. He can now face up to ten years in prison for illicit handling of narcotics and psychotropic substances.
The creators of this store revisit the great Czech classics of wooden toys by bringing them up to date with more contemporary colours, shapes, or options. Some parts of Prague are untouched by globalization. You need a sharp eye if you’re walking on Milady Horákové street in art district Letná (Prague 7). Among the varied mixture of shops, stop at the toy shop with the catchy name Hugo Chodí Bos (Hugo walks barefoot). The local brand offers toys as they were designed before 1989. The toys are authentic copies of originals and have a very strong Czechoslovak visual identity. The color combination, the unique shape, and the choice of material capture the aesthetic of the past exactly. Most of these popular toys were in every household. Generations of adults are usually really excited to see them again. They are made by the most talented designers are timeless and could serve as interesting objects to own. The variety you can find there includes but is not limited to classic wooden toys (pull toys, stacking toys, puzzles, etc.), tin toys (wind-up toys, cars, mountain cable cars), lovely illustrated books, paper toys including decorative mobiles, children’s suitcases, and collectable toys (e.g. Frida and Vincent Van Gogh...
On Friday, the Czech Coal Commission recommended ending the use of coal in 2038. NGOs warned that any coal exit later than 2030 would inevitably have to be accelerated anyway to secure a robust EU climate target to which Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš recently committed. “When deciding on the date of the end of coal, the coal commission did not take into account the potential of renewable energy sources that we have in the Czech Republic,” says Alexander Ač, a climatologist and member of the Shadow Coal Commission. Activists and youth organization members have been occupying the Czech Ministry of the Environment since November 16, demanding a coal phaseout by 2030 at the latest. Currently, coal plants generate around 50% of electricity in the Czech Republic. However, according to Czech environmental NGO Hnutí Duha, it is possible to shut down all coal plants by 2030. This is feasible and necessary due to the EU’s ambitious climate goals for 2030, but also because of the expected significant rise in price of allowances under the EU’s emission trading system, the NGO argues. EMBER, BloombergNEF, Energynautics, and McKinsey all recently published studies presenting different possible phaseout scenarios for the Czech Republic, demonstrating...
The coronavirus pandemic forced to close Primark’s stores and branches across Europe and postponed the opening in Prague in the fall. On Thursday, the Irish chain confirmed the opening of its first store on Wenceslas Square will take place “early next year”. “We will publish more information next week, including a specific opening date,” said Kateřina Outlá from the Grayling agency, which represents Primark in the Czech Republic. Czechs have long been waiting for the store to open. There was even a bus tour devoted to transporting Czech shoppers to the nearest Primark in Dresden, Germany. “The business that originates in Prague will be the flagship of Central and Eastern Europe. Customers from Bohemia and Moravia, who have been going to Dresden, Linz, and Vienna until now, will start going to Prague because it will be a huge branch, which will be located in an interesting place and in a new building in the very center of Prague,” Jan Kotrbáček from the real estate consultancy Cushman & Wakefield, a partner of Primark in the Czech Republic, said. Primark sells everything from baby and kids clothes to women and men’s apparel, homewares, accessories, beauty products, and confectionery. Much of what they sell is...
Several dozen police officers in the Prostějov region have been looking for a Czech senior who went for a walk with his pony and did not return. The missing person was found later in the evening, lying drunk in a ditch by the road. He told police that he had exchanged the animal for a bottle of plum brandy, which he finished all. “Due to the health and weather conditions, the police immediately organized a search operation,” said a police spokesman, claiming that police officers from Prostějov were joined by their colleagues from Olomouc, Novinky.cz reports. An hour later, the man was found in a ditch near Chvalkovice, just a few kilometers from his home. The pony was not with him. “He told the police that he had fallen into the ditch after being dazzled by an oncoming vehicle,” the spokesman added. Further investigation revealed that the breath test showed 1.8 per mille of alcohol in his body. Later, the man admitted to the police that he exchanged the animal for a bottle of plum brandy.
Don’t have an account? Register
[swpm_registration_form level=”6″]
Already have an account? Log In
How Would You Like to Promote Your Business? PR ArticleDisplay bannersVideo productionNewsletter adsJob ListingsInfluencer Marketing
Your Email
We will come back to you within 24 hours with our proporsal
