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A state of emergency was declared in the Czech Republic on March 12, more than a week before the country recorded its first death from covid-19.
On the same day, neighboring Slovakia closed its borders, with only 21 infected and no deaths from the disease.
The pattern was repeated in many of the former communist countries of central and eastern Europe: early closures, closed borders, heavy fines for breaking the rules, and often lawsuits for the use of mouth guards.
The result was considered a great success.
April 9thOn the same day that the number of deaths in covid surpassed the 1,000 mark in Sweden, the corresponding figure in Slovakia was 2. In Italy, 18,279 had died in the pandemic that day.
The economies to the east of the former Iron Curtain are much weaker than to the west, and thus health care is generally worse there. Therefore, many saw it as an imperative for these countries to close quickly.
Their care devices simply hadn’t been able to cope with a flood of patients requiring intensive care similar to those in Sweden and Italy, for example.
And the attack it didn’t come either. Countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovakia remained at the bottom of the lists of affected countries.
As early as June, 2,000 people gathered in Prague along a 500-meter-long table on the famous Charles Bridge for a party thrown as “a symbolic farewell to the pandemic.”
But perhaps this spring’s successful fight against infection caused these countries to breathe out prematurely.
Weaker economies also make countries more vulnerable to the economic crisis that has followed in the footsteps of the pandemic.
Central european Thus, during the summer, the countries have followed the rest of Europe and have reopened companies, although with some exceptions. The economy needed a new start.
In the Czech Republic, people were encouraged to go on vacation to Croatia and Prime Minister Andrei Babis himself set a good example. Stores, restaurants and schools were opened as crowd restrictions were eased.
The country has now been hit by a second wave of pandemics, more serious than any other EU country. The number of newly discovered infections in the last week has been around 3,000, which, given the population of the Czech Republic (10.7 million), is at the top of Europe per capita. The death toll switches between 10 and 20 per day.
And now reintroduced the state of emergency, although not a total closure. From Monday, a maximum limit of 10 people is applied to meet indoors. High schools and universities are moving towards distance education.
A strange provision is the prohibition of all events where it is sung; even in schools, singing is forbidden.
Slovakia has once again declared a national emergency with similar restrictions, while Hungary, also affected by the second wave of the pandemic, has closed its borders again.
What governments fear It is, of course, just like last spring, that the struggling healthcare system will not be able to cope with the situation with an increasing number of covid patients.
Of particular concern is the situation in Hungary, where the health sector has not received sufficient funding for years.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently told parliament that the government is prepared for the worst case scenario with 400,000 infected in November and the country has reportedly bought up to 16,000 respirators.
But he didn’t speak on the chronic shortage of health workers in Hungary. Péter Álmos, vice president of the country’s medical association, tells the independent site HVG that 300 doctors under the age of 40 left the association in the last year.
– They have often moved abroad or changed professions. It’s like a bunch of doctors just disappeared.
At the same time, nurses and other care personnel are needed. According to official statistics, the shortage of personnel in the health sector was 9,000 during the second quarter of 2020.
Read more:
Corona pandemic in Europe: Why do so few people die in the former Eastern bloc?
