[ad_1]
Vojtech told reporters on Monday that it was Prime Minister Andrej Babi ?? He has already broadcast his resignation, the CTK news agency reported. He justified his decision by saying that he wanted to create a space to resolve the pandemic. In the Czech Republic, the number of corona cases per 100,000 inhabitants is 193.
On Sunday he threatened a state of emergency if corona cases continued to rise dramatically.
Create “space for new solutions”
At a press conference announced on short notice Monday morning, Vojtech stated that it wanted to create “space for a new solution to the crown situation” in Lands. The number of corona cases in the neighboring country has increased enormously in recent weeks. According to the EU health agency ECDC, the Czech Republic now ranks second behind Spain in terms of number per 100,000 inhabitants in an average of 14 days. Therefore, criticism of the government of Prime Minister Andrej Babis grew louder.
Babis accepted this Monday with “understanding” the resignation of his party colleague and thanked him for the work done. Vojtech mastered the first wave of the epidemic “incredibly well,” Babis explained. “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.
“We have done everything we can to protect our citizens from infections. And I daresay we handled it very well in the first wave,” Vojtech 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.
Vojtech had wanted to toughen measures earlier in light of the crown number increase, but Babis 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 Vojtech’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 33-year-old lawyer Vojtech had been 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 Babis personally intervened and ensured that 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.
Tighter measures
In the neighboring country, once hailed as a model country for dealing with the corona virus, the crown numbers have skyrocketed since. Meanwhile, the measure, including the requirement for indoor masks, has been tightened. Last week, the Czech Republic reported repeated daily registrations with 10.7 million inhabitants. The number of new cases each day exceeded 3,000. 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 expected corona numbers to rise further to 8,000 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 Covid-19 cases before the end of the year.
Prymula becomes the new Czech Minister of Health
Government advisor and epidemiologist Roman Prymula will also become the new Health Minister. President Milos Zeman will appoint Prymula on Monday afternoon, and on Tuesday, the 56-year-old non-partisan man will be sworn in as the successor to the resigned Adam Vojtech, Prime Minister Andrej Babis told Czech news agency CTK on Monday.
Prymula recently came out in favor of declaring an emergency in the Czech Republic. Due to the massive increase in new infections in the neighboring northeastern country, the reintroduction of the national state of emergency has been debated for a few days. Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamacek said Sunday night that this step would not be taken in the coming days. Hamacek heads the core crisis team to deal with the corona pandemic, which has been back in action since Monday.
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 with 193. For comparison, in Austria there were 101 , 3 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants in the last two weeks. By Monday, the number of people infected in the Czech Republic since February increased by 985 to just under 49,300. A total of 503 people have died with or from Covid-19 so far. About the same number are currently being treated in the hospital, including nearly 90 patients in serious condition. The Czech Republic has almost 10.7 million inhabitants.
