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The “second wave”, which public health experts in the Czech Republic have been talking about for a long time, has claimed its first political sacrifice. Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch announced his resignation on Monday morning due to the dramatic increase in the number of new corona infections. At a shortly announced press conference, he said he wanted to create “space for a new solution to the crown situation” in Lands. The number of new infections has increased enormously in the neighboring country in recent weeks. On Sunday there were reports that a state of emergency could be imposed.
According to the EU health agency ECDC, the Czech Republic now ranks second behind Spain in terms of the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in an average of 14 days. Therefore, criticism of the government of Prime Minister Andrej Babiš grew louder.
Babiš accepted the resignation of his party colleague with “understanding” on Monday and thanked him for the work he had done. Vojtěch coped with the first wave of the epidemic “incredibly well,” Babiš told short message service Twitter. “I understand that it must have been too much for him to dislike politics and the media and to decide to resign,” said the head of government.
Pawn sacrifice?
“We have done everything possible to protect our citizens from infections. And I daresay we did very well in the first wave,” Vojtěch said when he resigned. He is convinced that he has done everything possible to solve the epidemic. “I don’t have to be ashamed,” said the politician from the populist ANO party.
Vojtěch had wanted to toughen measures earlier in view of the increasing number of infections, but Babiš initially resisted. Therefore, the opposition spoke of a pawn sacrifice before the regional and Senate elections in less than two weeks. The main culprit was the head of government criticized the head of the liberal-conservative Patrei TOP 09 Marketa Pekarova Adamova.
However, the conservative opposition welcomed Vojtěch’s decision. The Health Minister had already committed himself at the start of the epidemic, so his resignation was “eight months late,” said the president of the Democratic Citizen Party (ODS) Petr Fiala.
The measures have been tightened
Vojtěch, a 33-year-old lawyer, had come under great pressure in recent weeks. In August, health experts had already planned a slow preventive tightening of measures for the start of the school year on September 1. The Health Ministry also issued a relevant ordinance, but Prime Minister Andrej Babiš personally intervened and made sure the measures were significantly weakened. For tactical reasons, critics accuse the head of government of not wanting to upset the Czechs ahead of the regional and Senate elections in early October.
In the neighboring country, once hailed as a model country in treating the corona virus, the number of infections has since skyrocketed. Meanwhile, measures, including an indoor mask requirement, have tightened up. Last week, the Czech Republic reported repeated daily registrations with 10.7 million inhabitants. The number of new infections every day surpassed the 3,000 mark. The number fell to 985 on Sunday, but there is less evidence on the weekends.
Renowned Corona virologist and government commissioner Roman Prymula said he expects the number of infections to rise further to 8,000 new infections daily in the coming days. Then the curve could flatten out again, according to the expert. The most pessimistic scenario assumes that a third of Czechs will go through a Covid-19 infection by the end of the year.
