corona czechia Archives – Page 2 of 5

Professional football clubs in the Czech Republic on Tuesday approved a proposal to restart the top two divisions this month after they were suspended by the coronavirus pandemic.

The leagues had already agreed a plan for resuming play, but the clubs had to give it the green light because the competitions are now set to run until July.

Some sponsorship deals and player contracts expire by the end of June when the leagues were originally scheduled to conclude.

Six rounds of games in the regular season and the playoffs remain in the first division, which is now scheduled to be completed by July 15.

Matches will be played without spectators based on the guidelines of public health officials.

The first competition will be the 23rd round of Czech First League which will take place between Teplice and Liberec on May 23, according to local media reports.

The Second League will start in the week after May 25 and can expect playoffs during July, the league association said.

The decision to restart is in line with UEFA’s recommendation for leagues to “explore all possible options” to complete their seasons.

The restart was made possible as the government has been easing its restrictive measures adopted to contain the outbreak.

Reigning champions Slavia Prague are eight points clear of second-placed Viktoria Plzen in the First League.

The film commission in the Czech Republic announced Thursday that film and TV shoots can resume production immediately in Prague now that the government has lifted restrictions and provided safety guidelines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“Three-quarters of audiovisual productions in the Czech Republic stopped in March. In full compliance with the Ministry of Health, filmmakers are no longer affected by measures restricting cultural and sporting events and large gatherings. We, therefore, consider audiovisual production to be resumed,” Helena Bezděk Fraňková, director of the Czech Film Fund, said in a statement.

The Czech Republic was the first country in Europe to develop self-regulatory guidelines as protection against the spread of COVID-19 during filming.

“Adherence to these recommendations, including testing actors every 14 days during production and, of course, maintaining sanitation standards on location and in studios, will reduce the possibility of infection to an absolute minimum,” Czech film commissioner Pavlina Žipková said.

Shows such as Marvel’s “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” were shooting in the country before production was shuttered there. And Amazon also had productions prepped for the latest season of “Carnival Row” with Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne and the first season of “Wheel of Time” starring Rosamund Pike. Other productions include the Netflix film “473 Transatlantic.”

Among the guidelines that the film commission laid out for individual shoots included access to testing, use of a sanitary base camp, eating lunch in shifts (more commonly known as “French hours”), taking temperatures of people on set, and providing protective gear and sanitizing equipment.

Foreign actors and crew members must have undergone a COVID-19 test at the time they leave their home countries and will undergo a second test within 72 hours of arrival in the Czech Republic, and remain quarantined until they receive a negative result. In this way, they can avoid undergoing a 14-day quarantine upon arrival.

Immunity to the novel coronavirus is building up very slowly in the Czech Republic, with likely no more than 4-5% of the population covered, the Ministry of Health said on Wednesday, after mass testing for antibodies that started last month.

Overall, it found 107 positive cases after testing 26,549, making it one of the largest studies in Europe.

The study result is slightly higher than a European average of 0.2-3%, shown in 16 studies underway or completed, the ministry said.

“The positivity of antibodies ranges from zero to three percent, depending on the location,” said Ladislav Dušek, director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS).

The study estimated the number of people infected by the virus but not showing symptoms could range from 27-38%.

According to Vojtěch, it is necessary to focus on local outbreaks, such as Cheb or Prague in recent days. “We no longer have a general problem, but we have to solve it locally,” he added.

The highest incidence of infections (less than 5 percent) was recorded in the Moravian town of Litovel, which had been under quarantine several weeks ago, and the lowest in the regional capital, Brno.

Testing within this study was designated only for healthy people, i.e. people with no symptoms of upper respiratory disease and who have not previously tested positive for COVID-19.

“The aim of the study was not to determine the number of infected people but to generate hard data about how many people in the population have had COVID-19 with mild or no symptoms,” said Dušek.

Overall, about 27,000 people in 4 geographical areas with various COVID-19 disease caseloads have been tested, namely in Prague, Brno and its surroundings, Olomouc and its surroundings, and Litoměřice.

In Prague, 5,000 people have been tested, including 1,500 between the ages of 8 and 17, 1,500 between the ages of 18 and 39, 1,500 between the ages of 40 and 59 and 1,000 more between the ages of 60 and 89.

On Tuesday, there were 77 new infections, the highest number in the last five days. The Czech Republic has 7,896 confirmed cases of coronavirus. So far 4,006 people have recovered and 257 people have died.

The European Commission approved on Tuesday 5.2 billion euro (CZK 142 billion) Czech loan guarantee scheme for large companies with export activities affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: “This Czech guarantee scheme of about €5.2 billion will support companies with a certain amount of export activities in these difficult times. The measure will help these businesses continue their activity during and after the coronavirus outbreak. We continue to work in close cooperation with the Member States to find workable solutions to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, in line with EU rules.”

The scheme will be accessible to large companies whose exports represent at least 20% of their yearly sales revenue.

The guarantees will support lending to those companies, but will not take the form of export aid contingent on export activities as it is not tied to concrete export contracts.

On the contrary, it finances the general activity of the beneficiaries by facilitating their access to liquidity in the form of working capital loans and investment loans.

The Commission has adopted a Temporary Framework to enable Member States to use the full flexibility foreseen under State aid rules to support the economy in the context of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Temporary Framework will be in place until the end of December 2020.

The Czech Republic is donating 500,000 face masks to Italy to support healthcare workers. Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch (ANO) announced it during the daily government press conference.

Italy will receive the shipment this week.

Italy is one of the countries most affected by coronavirus, with 212,000 cases and 29,000 deaths.

Italy registered the lowest daily number of coronavirus-related deaths since just after its lockdown started two months ago. Both the number of new infections and patients in intensive care have continued to fall.

The country is relaxing its lockdown from Monday when Italians will be able to exercise as long as they respect rules on maintaining a physical distance. They will also be able to visit relatives – but not friends – within their region.

However, schools, cinemas, and most shops will stay shut. Bars and restaurants are due to start allowing customers to sit at tables in June.

On March 23, the Italian daily La Repubblica reported that Czech authorities seized Chinese masks intended for Italian hospitals under the guise of a sting against traffickers.

A few days later, the Czech Republic sent 110,000 of the much-needed protective items to Rome as compensation for the snafu, according to a report.

“We’ve just sent 110,000 face masks to Italy by bus heading to Rome… along with 43 Italian tourists who could not get back home,” Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek told Agence France-Presse.

Interior Minister Jan Hamacek later acknowledged on Twitter that “unfortunately, after further investigation, it turned out that a smaller part of this seizure was a Chinese donation to Italy.”

eRouska is an app for mobile phones that has been developed to use Bluetooth to track all users of the app with whom you come into contact with.

The app is now also available for iPhone users. eRouška is part of the so-called smart quarantine, a project that involves tracing past contacts of people who test positive for the virus five days back by creating “maps of their movements” with the help of banks and mobile phone operators.

The application, which the Ministry of Health has taken under its patronage should facilitate an easier, faster, and more effective process of looking up people who are at high risk of infection due to contact with an infected person.

Once the users give their permission to the app, phones with activated Bluetooth service can let one another know when they meet. The eRouška application then saves anonymized data into the owner’s phone about mobile devices with the same application which were recently in its vicinity.

If a user’s coronavirus test comes back positive, the phone data can then be used to send anonymized identification numbers of other applications to health officers during an epidemiologic investigation. If once again the user gives permission, only authorized health officers will be able to pair individual identification numbers with phone numbers entered during the registration and then contact potentially infected citizens.

The authors state that the entire eRouška system was designed in accordance with GDPR, and the application is open source which means that anyone can take a look at its code.

„Compared to other solutions which have appeared on the market not just in the Czech Republic but also abroad, eRouška’s advantage is that it doesn’t use collection of location data in order to function, and this saves the phone battery as well,” clarifies Martin Půlpitel from the Information Technology Faculty of CTU and the founder of developer company Ackee.

“The Czech state is ready to pay at least a third of the rent to companies and entrepreneurs who had to close their businesses from March 12 (when the state of emergency was declared), to the end of June. One-third of the rent should be paid by the tenant, one third by the landlord and one third by the state,” said Prime Minister Andrej Babiš to the iDNES.cz server.

The government should discuss the details of this new proposal next week, but no later than May 11.

“We are doing our best to help companies. We will extend the kurzarbeit program and come up with a proposal to postpone social security payments,” added Babiš.

If the state participates in paying the rent for a third, it would cost about 3 billion CZK. “We can help shopping centers, thousands of pubs, small shops, and hairdressers, whose landlords agree to forgive a third of the rent,” said Babiš.

Previously, the Czech government agreed to allow companies to defer payments for social security and health insurance for the months of May, June, and July.

It’s a move designed to allow companies to concentrate their available cash on covering their wage bill that many managers said would be more useful than the complicated process of applying for low-interest loans from the state.

From May 11, ninth-graders students will return to school, cinemas, and theaters, can reopen. Minister of Health added that there will be strict rules for visitors, such as a safe distance between them.

Sports and cultural events (up to 100 people) will be able to take place again. The rule will also applies to weddings and church services.

Since March, the coronavirus has been confirmed in 7,740 cases. To date, 3,378 people have recovered from Covid-19, while 241 patients have died.

The Czech government has sped up plans to restart the country amid the novel coronavirus pandemic and will begin reopening cinemas and theaters on May 11, two weeks ahead of the government’s previous May 25 target.

Audiences in theaters will initially be limited to 100 people. Previous restrictions banned all gatherings of more than 10 people due to concerns surrounding the pandemic.

Czech health minister Adam Vojtech announced the new measures late on Thursday. In addition to cinemas, sporting and cultural events, limited to 100 people, will also be allowed from May 11.

The moves raises hopes that film and television production in Prague may also be allowed to restart soon.

The Czech Republic is one of the top spots for international television and film production and if Czech backlots can re-open, it would be a welcome sign that the entertainment industry is getting back to work.

According to World Health Organization data, there were no new deaths from COVID-19 in the Czech Republic on Thursday

From May 11, ninth-graders students will return to school, cinemas, and theaters can reopen. Minister of Health added that there will be strict rules for visitors, such as a safe distance between them.

For example, cinemas will have a limit of 100 people per auditorium in the hall. However, they will not be allowed to sell any snacks. “No popcorn, no drinking. It would be necessary to take off the face mask and that is a great risk,” Vojtech explained.

There will always be one free row among the occupied ones. People must sit at least one empty seat apart. Only couples and married couples can sit next to each other.

Hairdressers and barbers need to wear a face mask. At the same time, it will be necessary to keep at least a two-meter distance between customers.

The Minister of Industry Karel Havlíček explained how restaurants’ gardens will work. “Customers can sit without restrictions at one table. However, the distance between guests at different tables must be one and a half meters”.

Shopping centers over 5,000 meters will open on May 11. Hand disinfection will be provided at each entrance. Disinfection must also be provided in all shops. Children’s corners and similar services won’t work. Employees must prevent people from gathering in front of the toilets.

“From May 11, it will be possible to try on clothes. Prerequisite is hand disinfection,” said Minister Vojtěch.

According to the Minister of Education Robert Plaga, kindergartens “will operate as usual, with increased hygienic measures”. Children do not have to wear a face mask, but they should spend most of their time outside outdoor.

Minister Plaga emphasized that the return of ninth-graders students to schools will be voluntary.

Sports and cultural events (up to 100 people) will be able to take place again, providing the epidemiological situation remains favourable and specific hygienic measures are in place. Indoor sports grounds will also be opened, said Milan Hnilička (ANO), chairman of the National Sports Agency.

Museums and galleries should also open from May 11. Up to 100 people will be allowed at the same time, with a maximum of one per ten square meters of space for visitors. “Galleries and museums know their exhibition area and therefore are able to count how many people can let in,” said Vojtech. Visitors have to keep two meters of safe distance.

Cross-border workers will newly be released from the mandatory quarantine if they present a negative test result to a district hygienic station within 72 hours after returning to the country. Negative test result will be required once in 30 days.

The smart quarantine project is to be applied actively nationwide as of May 1st after undergoing a testing period in several regions. It should replace the broad government-imposed restrictions which are being gradually eased.

Czechs’s confirmed coronavirus cases increased by 103 to 7682, data from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases showed today, marking a third consecutive day of new infections accelerating.

The daily increase in COVID-19 confirmed cases steadily slowed from April 20 to 27, falling to 41 cases per day.

It was the lowest daily increase since March 13. From Tuesday, however, the daily increase began to accelerate again. The ministry has not yet published data on the number of tests performed on Thursday.

Compared to the numbers from Thursday evening, the number of people recovered increased by 33 to 3314 and the number of deaths increased by one to 236.

Czechs have been advised to stay at home as much as possible and continue to apply physical distancing.

In Germany the situation is similar.

Since Angela Merkel announced a relaxation of lockdown measures the reproduction rate of the virus – known as R – has risen towards one again. That means it is at risk of resuming rapid growth.

Social distancing measures in Germany will be extended until May 10, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff said ahead of a government meeting later on Thursday to review lockdown restrictions.

On April 30, the Czech Government has abolished the tax on immovable property acquisitions and at the same time cancel tax deductions for new mortgages.

From May 11, announced to have abolished the tax on immovable property acquisitions and at the same time cancel tax deductions for new mortgages.

Moreover, cinemas, and theaters, can reopen. Sports and cultural events (up to 100 people) will be able to take place again. The rule will also applies to weddings and church services.

The Czech Government has officially announced to have abolished the tax on immovable property acquisitions and at the same time cancel tax deductions for new mortgages.

Immovable property acquisition tax is paid by the buyer, amounting to 4% of the tax base, determined specifically according to the manner in which real property has been acquired, i.e. purchase, transfer, auction, or insolvency.

The cancellation of interest deductions should neither apply to contracts that have already been concluded nor to contracts that are new but have only been concluded to refinance existing mortgages.

From May 11, ninth-graders students will return to school, cinemas, and theaters, can reopen. Minister of Health added that there will be strict rules for visitors, such as a safe distance between them.

Sports and cultural events (up to 100 people) will be able to take place again. The rule will also applies to weddings and church services.

From 1 May, children under the age of 7 will no longer have to wear face masks in kindergartens. Ministers also confirmed the extension of the state of emergency until 17 May.

Large music festivals will not be able to take place until mid-October. The government has proposed an amendment to the law according to which organizers of large cultural events will be able to offer vouchers for future cultural events, instead of reimbursing tickets sold.

Colors of Ostrava has just announced to have canceled its 2020 edition.

From May 11, shopping malls and larger shops are also set to reopen, along with outdoor restaurants and pubs, hairdressers, and museums.

The last phase is due on May 25 with restaurants, pubs and hotels returning to action.

The Czech Republic declared a state of emergency on March 12. Over the following days, schools and universities were closed; all sporting, cultural and religious activities were banned; retail stores, except grocery stores and pharmacies, were shut; and movement was limited to travel to and from work, and shopping for essential items.

Starting from Friday, May 1, the smart quarantine system will be fully in place across the Czech Republic.

The project involves tracing past contacts of people who test positive for the virus five days back by creating “maps of their movements” with the help of banks and mobile phone operators.

Czech banks will provide data for the creation of memory maps. The data will be handed over to the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic, which will require it based on the consent of infected people.

The information was provided by the Czech Banking Association (ČBA).

“We are relaxing several strict measures, people are starting to go to work and doing more activities outdoor, shops are opening and we need a system for finding positive cases. The virus has not disappeared, so in order to avoid a higher number of new patients, we have to be able to detect them effectively,” said Prymula.

Smart Quarantine should significantly ease the workload on regional hygiene stations and improve the efficiency of the current sample collection system. “It is a meaningful and important project that is crucial for all of us. Smart Quarantine will replace the universal restrictive measures and speed up our return to normal life,” Minister Vojtěch added.

Smart Quarantine is complemented by the eRouška application, which people can download to their smartphones for free. This is a voluntary tool but can help hygienists more easily and quickly find the people who have recently come into contact with infected people and who are at a high risk of infection. “They just have to download the app and let it run in the background,” said the minister about the app.

“This is a unique project, created through prompt cooperation among the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defence, the Czech Army, the Integrated Rescue Services of the Czech Republic, and the private sector. We have managed to prepare a project of a scope that would take months, maybe even years, to prepare under normal circumstances, within mere weeks,” Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch said when presenting the project.

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