Despite an increase in the amount of testing, the graph depicting the increase in transmissions is going down from 11 percent to around 5 percent.
According to the Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch (ANO), this means that the Czech Republic has managed to stop the uncontrolled spread of the COVID-19.
“We managed to stop the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 and we can prepare for a return to normal life in the coming weeks. We are not in the same situation as Italy, Spain, USA or the United Kingdom. The situation is developing very well,” Vojtech said.
Ladislav Dušek, director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS), confirmed the data. “We have increased the testing capacity. It is a clear signal that something is happening in the population and that the spread has stopped.”
The reproductive number (R0) of the virus has also decreased, ie the number of people able to infect one person with the disease. It started at 2.64 and now fell to 1.1. The Ministry of Health expects it to decrease to 1.02.
R0 tells the average number of people who will catch a disease from one contagious person. If a disease has an R0 of 5, a person who has the disease will transmit it to an average of 5 other people, as long as no one has been vaccinated against it or is already immune to it in their community.
- If R0 is less than 1, each existing infection causes less than one new infection. In this case, the disease will decline and eventually die out.
- If R0 equals 1, each existing infection causes one new infection. The disease will stay alive and stable, but there won’t be an outbreak or an epidemic.
- If R0 is more than 1, each existing infection causes more than one new infection. The disease will spread between people, and there may be an outbreak or epidemic.
“It does not mean eliminating the virus, but that one person can infect on average one another,” added Dušek. According to him, it is important “to continue to know the behavior of the virus.”
Original projections saw 14,200 infections in the Czech Republic by the end of April, now it has been revised to 10,600.
The Czech Republic had 5,033 confirmed cases of coronavirus infection as of midnight. So far 181 people have recovered from the COVID-19 illness and 91 people have died.