
The Czech Republic, facing Europe’s biggest surge in new coronavirus infections per capita, reported 11,105 COVID-19 cases on Friday, its largest single-day tally so far of the pandemic, Health Ministry data showed on Saturday.
There were 1,342 confirmed cases in Prague, the second-highest increase since the beginning of the epidemic. Currently, 15,673 people are suffering from the infection in the Czech capital. A total of 236 people died.
The total number in the Czech Republic has risen to 160,112, double the number seen on October 2 and more than six times the amount overall before September.
As of Saturday morning, 1,283 people have died after contracting the coronavirus.
In the two weeks to Friday, the Czech Republic recorded more than 74,000 cases, 10,000 more than Italy which has almost six times the population, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Read: Police Will Bring a ‘Stronger Approach’ to Covid Measure Breaches
Health officials have warned that the coming weeks will be difficult but said on Friday the system was not facing collapse. They estimate up to 5,000 patients will be in hospital by the end of the month, with a fifth of in intensive care.
Prague plans to announce the competition soon, which stipulates that they are looking to purchase accommodation facilities for 20 to 90 people, with a total maximum capacity of 500 guests.
They will be used to help homeless and other socially disadvantaged people to quarantine, as well as police officers, firefighters or paramedics who live outside of the city.
It has also agreed with larger neighbour Germany – which has seen 10 times fewer cases per capita over the past two weeks than the Czech Republic – to possibly send some Czech patients to its hospitals.
Read: Czech Republic to Build Field Hospitals as COVID-19 Cases Soar
As many as 2,400 medical students will be recruited to help in the hospitals whose personnel was weakened by the coronavirus.
Support Prague Morning!
We are proud to provide our readers from around the world with independent, and unbiased news for free.
Our dedicated team supports the local community, foreign residents and visitors of all nationalities through our website, social media and newsletter.
We appreciate that not everyone can afford to pay for our services but if you are able to, we ask you to support Prague Morning by making a contribution – no matter how small 🙂 .