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The Central Crisis Staff which is coordinating the fight against the coronavirus epidemic has launched a so-called “smart quarantine” plan in the south Moravian region.
The plan envisages tracing past contacts of people who test positive for the virus five days back by creating “maps of their movements” with the help of banks and mobile phone operators.
All those who they came into contact with are to be tested and quarantined until cleared.
The plan is being implemented with the help of the army in order to speed up testing.
If it proves effective in the given region the smart quarantine plan will be implemented nation-wide and will replace blanket restrictions.
The Czech government is debating an emergency aid package for entrepreneurs and employers to mitigate the impacts of the coronavirus crisis.
These include a six month moratorium on mortgage and other loan repayments and the sum of CZ 15,000 a month for all who were forced to close their businesses within the restrictions imposed by the government.
The kurzarbeit system, approved by the government earlier to try to prevent massive lay-offs, should be launched on April 1st.
In view of the ongoing pandemic the foreign minister has proposed a 2-week quarantine for all returning from abroad, as opposed to just those returning from high-risk countries.
Restrictions on movement will remain in force. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO) and Health Minister Adam Vojtěch are in favour of extending the state of emergency beyond April 11, for another 30 days. That would require approval from the lower house of Parliament.
The head of the Czech Chamber of Commerce Vladimír Dlouhý has welcomed the government’s COVID 19 aid package for employers and entrepreneurs, but stressed that they should be better informed as regards the conditions under which they can ask for help.
According to the results of a flash poll conducted among 1400 entrepreneurs two-fifths of Czech businesses plan to make use of the kurzarbeit scheme approved by the government, Dlouhý said.
Almost a third of enterprises say they have exhausted their financial reserves. One in four companies have stopped paying their suppliers.
So far, seven percent of respondents have laid off workers – of that 17 percent in the restaurant business and 14 percent in tourism.
Close to 35 percent of companies in the manufacturing industry are also considering redundancies in the future.
The authorities have lifted the lockdown on 21 villages in the Olomouc region a fortnight after it was introduced.
The lockdown ended on Sunday at midnight following a significant decrease in the number of coronavirus cases registered.
Those who are not in quarantine are once again free to leave the village while observing the given nation-wide restrictions that are still in place.
Trains have once again started stopping in the said villages and people can now travel to work or to buy groceries further afield.
The number Czech coronavirus infections stood at 2,837 as of Monday morning, up less than 10 percent in 24 hours. Among the 5 who died on Sunday was a nurse who worked at Prague’s Thomayer Hospital, according to the Ministry of Health.
The nurse is the first medical professional in the country to have died from Covid-19. She worked in a geriatric department where a total of 25 patients and two nurses had contracted the coronavirus.The death toll now stands at 17, with 11 having fully recovered from the disease.
The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the importance of public media as a reliable communication tool, according to Jakub Macek, head of media studies at Brno’s Masaryk University.
According to a poll conducted by the institution 56 percent of Czechs rate Czech public television and Czech public radio as “reliable” or “absolutely reliable” and turn to them in times of crisis.
Ratings show that last weekend Czech public television had 38 percent of the viewer market. Macek said both public radio and television had proved their ability to respond quickly to a crisis to meet the needs of the public, not just in terms of information.
For instance Czech Television launched online school lessons for children almost as soon as schools closed and has now launched a new channel for the elderly who are mostly confined to their homes.
Tuesday should bring partly cloudy skies with scattered snow or sleet showers and day temperatures between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius.
While the Czech Republic is faring better than some other European states in terms of COVID-19 infection rates, social care representatives are concerned that the state has not prepared sufficiently to handle the outbreak in nursing homes, where dozens of cases are now being registered.
With New York reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, the city’s Czech Center is now reaching the public online. As part of this new focus, it has created a series of interviews with well-known Czech figures in the city entitled Artists That Never Give Up in the City That Never Sleeps – and those interviews will also be appearing on Radio Prague International’s website in the coming days. I discussed the project with Czech Center New York director Miroslav Konvalina.
In his new book Slepé skvrny (Blind Spots), sociologist Daniel Prokop offers illuminating perspectives on various aspects of today’s Czech Republic. This makes the Charles University academic the perfect person with whom to discuss issues such as the connections between pay level and political outlook and between social mobility and education – and how the coronavirus crisis is likely to affect the country’s worst off. But our conversation begins with Czech populism.
Prague is one of the European capitals that offers residents and visitors less traditional means of public transport. These include river ferries that shorten people's journey between the banks of the Vltava River or ferry them to Prague‘s islands. Some of them are open all year round, others are seasonal. Four seasonal ferries which resume operation at the end of March are the links from Lihovar-to-Veslařský ostrov, Lahovičky-Nádraží to Modřany (pictured) and Pražská tržnice-to Rohanský ostrov.
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