Czechs order bars and eating places shut early, president taken to hospital with COVID

The Czech authorities on Thursday ordered bars and golf equipment to shut at 10 p.m. and banned Christmas markets in an try to stem one of many world’s highest coronavirus an infection charges.
The new restrictions additionally embody a most attendance of 1,000 individuals at tradition and sports activities occasions, stopping wanting the sweeping lockdowns in neighbouring Austria and Slovakia, the place an infection charges are even larger.Just hours after the brand new restrictions had been introduced, the presidential workplace stated President Milos Zeman was taken to hospital after testing constructive for the coronavirus, though native media reported he confirmed no signs.
This was lower than half a day after the 77-year-old chief left the hospital following a 46-day remedy for an unrelated power situation.The Czechs registered greater than 25,000 new instances, a report, on Tuesday, and a median of 1,516 day by day COVID-19 instances per million inhabitants over the previous week, the third highest on the planet behind Slovakia and Austria, based on Our World in Data.

Health Minister Adam Vojtech stated day by day infections and hospital admissions had been more likely to rise additional, however the authorities hoped the brand new measures would stop the necessity for more durable restrictions. The limits on pubs and occasions come on high of earlier restrictions that already bar individuals who haven’t been vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19 from locations together with pubs, eating places, cinemas, hairdressers and gymnasiums.
“Let’s wait 10 days and then we can potentially adjust the measures,” Vojtech stated after the federal government declared a 30-day state of emergency to place the measures in place.
Many hospitals have cancelled non-urgent care to order capability for coronavirus sufferers, and a few, particularly within the nation’s south-east close to borders with Slovakia and Austria, reported they had been overflowing.Helicopters and a particular ambulance bus took 19 sufferers on Thursday from the jap metropolis of Brno to hospitals within the capital Prague, 200 km (120 miles) away.
The Prague Motol University Hospital took seven of them.”We now have 110 sufferers, about half of them are in a severe or semi-serious situation and…two thirds of them will not be vaccinated,” Motol Director Miroslav Ludvik informed reporters.Prime Minister Andrej Babis – who is because of hand over to a brand new administration in a number of weeks – stated the federal government was in favour of obligatory vaccination of individuals aged over 50 or 60 in addition to chosen professions, and it could possibly be permitted subsequent week.
The incoming authorities has, nonetheless, spoken towards vaccine mandates.The Czech Republic has vaccinated 58.5% of the entire inhabitants, beneath the EU common of 65.8%, based on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.Health ministry information confirmed that 70% of sufferers in intensive care had been unvaccinated. There had been practically 6,000 coronavirus sufferers in hospitals and round 850 in intensive care, the information confirmed.