Wednesday, January 22, 2025
The vaccination centre at Prague’s O2 Arena complex is to be a key component in ramping up inoculations.
The largest COVID-19 vaccination centre in the Czech Republic started its operations this morning. It will be open daily from 08:00 to 20:00.
On the first day, about a thousand people will be vaccinated, the capacity will gradually increase. At maximum workload, healthcare staff will be able to administer the vaccine to 7,000 people a day.
People can register for vaccinations at O2 Universum from the beginning of last week. According to Jitka Zinke, a spokeswoman at the Central Military Hospital in Prague (UVN), about 1,000 people were registered on Monday, and about 2,000 on Tuesday.
“Negotiations for the lease of the O2 Universum for a large-scale vaccination centre were initiated on the basis of an offer of free rent, and therefore for a symbolic amount of CZK 1,000 for the entire duration of the lease, which the O2 universum complied with. We also agreed to cover demonstrable costs for services that the O2 universum will help to provide for the operation of the vaccination centre, such as cleaning common areas, surveillance of common areas, accreditation services, meals for the staff of the vaccination centre and others. The costs of heat, hence cooling, water consumption and electricity related exclusively to the operation of the vaccination centre will also be covered,” summarises Professor Zavoral, director of the UVN.
The vaccination centre faced a three-week delay due to a lack of vaccines.
People aged 50 to 54 will be able to register for vaccination against Covid-19 as of Wednesday, PM Andrej Babiš has announced. He said it should be open to anyone over 16 by June 1 at the latest.
Currently, vaccination registration is open to all over the age of 55.
Latest statistics
The health ministry recorded 1,171 and 504 new COVID-19 infections, respectively, on Saturday and Sunday, down from 1,306 and 825 on the previous weekend. Sunday’s daily tally was the lowest since Sept. 6 as infections slow.
The official death toll has risen to 29,365, increasing by 49 on the weekend, which also includes revisions to previous days, according to ministry data. Daily deaths have also fallen from peaks of over 200 in March.
The number of new cases has steadily dropped over the past few weeks, and the reproduction rate index fell from 0.89 to 0.88 on Sunday.
To date, 3.2 million doses of vaccine have been administered, and over 1 million people, nearly 10 percent of the population, have received two doses.
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