German States to Send 15,000 Vaccines to Czech Republic

Three German states are sending 15,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine to the Czech Republic, German regional MDR television reported on Sunday, citing Saxony’s state premier, Michael Kretschmer.

The three states are Saxony and Bavaria, which border the Czech Republic, and their neighbor, Thuringia.

Prague on Friday tightened restrictions on shops, schools, and movement for the next three weeks in a bid to slow a surge of coronavirus infections.

“We must limit people’s mobility as much as possible for three weeks and minimize people-to-people contacts,” said PM Babis. “We will introduce a ban on movement between regions with some exceptions, such as travel to work.”

The Czech Republic had the highest per capita infection rate in the world over the past week, according to the Our World in Data website, 10 times that of Germany.

France has already pledged to supply 100,000 vaccine doses to the Czech Republic and Israel has sent 5,000 shots.

The European Commission has sealed deals with several companies for well over 2 billion vaccine shots – far more than the EU population of around 450 million – but only three have been authorized: jabs from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. Officials say the Johnson & Johnson vaccine could be approved next month.