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Interior Minister Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamacek confirmed on public service news television that the government will ask parliament to extend the state of emergency, which expires at midnight on Saturday, for one more month. “Some of the foreseen precautions can only be introduced in times of emergency,” Hamacek said.
He did not want to clarify the planned measures, because he believes that a final decision has not yet been made at the extraordinary government meeting that night, and the ideas will be discussed first with the opposition. Petr Fiala, president of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), said They understand that the situation is serious, but they can only accept government measures if the ministers fully justify them.
It has been announced that the Czech government will meet for another extraordinary hearing on Thursday evening. Late at night, the cabinet imposed a travel ban on dozens of African and South American countries that had a South African mutation in the coronavirus.
Nova commercial television was informed that all schools, kindergartens, hotels, services and shops would be completely closed for three weeks in March. The movement of the population would be restricted to certain regions, with the exception of going to work and visiting doctors.
Starting Thursday morning, respirators of at least category FFP2 must be used in shops, public transport and medical institutions in the Czech Republic.
In the Czech Republic, screening tests revealed 13,657 new confirmed coronavirus infections on Wednesday, which is 2,700 more than a week ago. There are around 7,000 covid patients in hospitals, 1,400 of whom are serious. Health Minister Jan Blatny acknowledged that Czech hospitals are on the brink of capacity. A further deterioration in the epidemic situation could lead to a collapse of hospital care in the coming weeks. Most hospitals have discontinued virtually all other services except intensive care.
The main problem is the workload of medical personnel, said the minister. It confirmed that the bed capacity of both the special covidos and the intensive care units had practically reached its upper limit. On Wednesday, only about 15 percent of the beds were free.
Cover image: Getty Images
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