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New prime minister Petr Fiala and prime minister in resignation Andrej Babiš have expressed support for a project aimed at accelerating the administration of third vaccines against Covid-19 in the Czech Republic.
The two, who appeared together in front of journalists on Tuesday morning, said it was necessary at present to show common purpose and overcome political divisions.
The group Doctors Helping Czechia aims to help around a million people receive their third Covid jabs within one week. They want outpatient doctors to set aside time for administering vaccines.
The Czech Health Ministry plans to introduce compulsory vaccination for people over 60 and people in high-risk professions, such as health care workers and people in social services, soldiers, police officers, firefighters and customs officers. The regulation will come into effect as of March 2022. President Zeman on Monday also voiced support for compulsory vaccinations saying they were the only way out of the protracted health crisis.
However the new administration of Prime Minister Petr Fiala has rejected the idea of mandatory vaccination, arguing that it would raise a wave of protests and divide the society. The nominee for health minister Vlastimil Válek said the new government’s first steps in the fight against Covid would be to further restrict elective care and increase the number of PCR tests conducted.
The Chief Hygiene Officer Pavla Svrčinová has ordered that people who come into close contact with a Covid positive person will have to undergo a PCR test whether or not they are inoculated. The ruling, which is effective immediately, states that people who live in one household with an infected person, or have spent longer than five minutes in their immediate vicinity without a respirator will have to get a PCR test within 5 to 7 days after the contact. The ruling came shortly after the National Reference Laboratory confirmed the first case of the African strain Omicron on Czech territory.
The total number of recorded Covid deaths in the Czech Republic now exceeds 33,000. According to the latest Ministry of Health data, 33,069 people in the country have died with the virus.
Some 17,599 new infections were recorded on Monday, a rise of around 3,100 on the same day last week.
The seven-day case incidence rate has climbed further, to 1,230.
A total of 6,394 people are currently in hospital with the coronavirus, with 1,022 of them in a critical condition. It is the first time since early April that the number of critical cases has exceeded 1,000.
The candidate for minister of culture in the new Czech government, Martin Baxa, spoke with President Miloš Zeman on Tuesday, as part of a series of meetings with incoming cabinet members being held by the latter. Speaking afterwards, Mr. Baxa said the two had discussed linking culture and education as well as compensation for the impact of the Covid situation on the arts sector.
The Civic Democrat MP said the president had also expressed interest in funding for monument care.
The president says his talks with incoming ministers should conclude in mid-December.
The mayor of Prague, Zdeněk Hřib, said on Tuesday that he had called on the minister of health to revise a decision to ban Christmas markets in view of the Covid situation. Mr. Hřib said, however, that he could envisage a prohibition on consuming food or drink at such markets.
For his part, health minister Adam Vojtěch said that the closure of Christmas markets was necessary in view of the current record infection numbers and full hospitals.
New Year’s Day celebrations in Prague will take place without either fireworks or videomapping shows. The city’s authorities decided to not go ahead with traditional January 1 municipal events in view of the Covid situation, a spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The current city government replaced fireworks with videomapping some years ago. However there were no shows of any kind at the start of 2021, also because of the coronavirus.
Prague’s Municipal Court has acquitted former politician Vít Bárta and policeman Jan Petržílek. The pair had been accused of leaking wiretaps of the BIS counterintelligence service targeting then Prague mayor Pavel Bém and influential businessman Roman Janoušek. The state prosecutor may appeal Tuesday’s verdict.
Mr. Bárta headed the now defunct Public Affairs party, with whom he served as minister of transport.
The wiretaps were published in newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes and appeared to show that Mr. Janoušek was pulling strings at City Hall while Mr. Bém was mayor.
It should be mainly overcast in the Czech Republic on Wednesday, with an average high temperature of 5 degrees Celsius. Lower temperatures are expected in the following days.
Theatre director, stage designer and composer Jiří Srnec, founder of the legendary Black Light Theatre, has died in Prague at the age of 90. His unique theatrical group celebrated its first success in 1962 at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and has since become famous all around the world.
Czech textile artist Blanka Kolková is one of more than 300 embroiderers from all around the world, who have taken part in the British award-winning Red Dress Project. It was conceived by British artist Kirstie Macleod with the aim to provide artistic platform for women the world over, many of whom are marginalised or live in poverty, to tell their personal stories through embroidery.
As Covid numbers continue to rise, the Czech Health Ministry is pushing for mandatory Covid vaccination for selected professions and people over 60, to be introduced as of next March. The announcement has sparked fierce controversy between the incoming and outgoing administration on how to prevent the epidemic from spiraling out of control.
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