PRAGUE – More than 20,000 white crosses have been painted on the cobblestones of a medieval square in central Prague, each representing a victim of Covid-19 – an effort that highlights the devastation of a pandemic that has hit Eastern and Central Europe in recent weeks.
Like many countries in the region, the Czech Republic resisted the first wave of the coronavirus at the beginning of last year much better than Italy and many other Western European nations. But he has since suffered one of the highest death rates in Covid in the world and struggled over the past month to contain a new wave of infections.
Hungary – whose far-right populist leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, boasted last year of his government’s response to the pandemic – is also experiencing record death rates, with more than 4,000 deaths last month.
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia and other countries in the region lifted restrictions on the pandemic last summer after successful initial efforts to contain the virus. But with cases and deaths increasing in recent weeks, they are now struggling to reverse the damage.
Hungary and Slovakia, both members of the European Union, are seeking help for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, although it has not yet been approved by the bloc’s regulators. Hungary has also started using a vaccine made in China that has not been approved in the European Union. Serbia, which is not part of the bloc, has bought millions of doses of vaccines from Russia and China, as well as from Western companies.
A major cause of the rise in infection rates is a more contagious virus variant that was first identified in Britain in December and has since spread rapidly in the Czech Republic, Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe and Eastern.
Poland on Saturday ordered the closure of hotels and shops, except food stores, until further notice, after an increase in infections, at least 60 percent of which are the variant first detected in Britain.
Deeply polarized policies across the region have hampered countries’ responses to the pandemic, with parties that are out of power – whether pro-Western liberals or right-wing populists – or junior partners in unstable coalitions routinely attacking whatever their rivals in the government do.
Anti-government protesters in Serbia held small demonstrations over the weekend of closing restaurants and bars, and public health experts in Hungary complained about the Orban government’s inconsistent response to the pandemic.
In Slovakia, the decision to import vaccines from Russia pushed a coalition government to the brink of collapse earlier this month, after a disagreement among lawmakers over the move. The per capita mortality rate from coronavirus in Slovakia is double that of France and just behind the Czech Republic.
The painted crosses that appeared on Monday in the Old Town Square in Prague, the Czech capital, were the work of A Million Moments for Democracy, a group of activists who oppose Prime Minister Andrej Babis and organized major street protests against he. The crosses, totaling more than 20,000, represented the nearly 25,000 people who died of the virus in the country – a large number in a nation with a population of around 10 million.
The Czech Republic, like Slovakia, is bitterly divided over the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. Although published data indicate that it has an efficacy rate of over 90%, critics in Moscow in Europe see it as a “tool hybrid warfare “that is being deployed to divide the West.
Czech President Milos Zeman, long known for pro-Kremlin views, said last month that he asked Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to arrange for Sputnik to be delivered to his country. When the Czech health ministry rejected the idea, Zeman unsuccessfully demanded that the minister be fired.
Vaccines, however, do not offer a quick way out of the pandemic. Until a large number of residents are vaccinated, vaccines can give people a false sense of security, causing them to stop wearing masks and take other care. Serbia, Europe’s best vaccinator after Britain, has seen infection rates soar sharply in recent weeks, prompting authorities to impose new partial blocks.
Counting on the European Union’s failed efforts to order and distribute vaccines, the Czech government has sought to reduce the rate of infection and mortality, imposing some of Europe’s toughest restrictions.
After a three-week block with stores and schools closed, mandatory employee testing by companies and restrictions on movement, the number of Covid-10 patients entering the hospital has started to drop. This has slowly eased the burden on hospitals that were at the limit of capacity last month, and Czech hospitals now report that 12% of beds in their intensive care unit are unoccupied.
Petr Smejkal, the chief epidemiologist at the Prague Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, blamed what he described as a series of errors of judgment by the authorities for his country’s bleak record.
“Firstly, we missed the start of the second wave and were unable to contain the increase in infections in late summer,” he said. “Secondly, we relaxed the restrictions before Christmas and, thirdly, we did not sufficiently track the British mutation in early January.”
“Unfortunately, the government has not listened to its experts,” he added.
The Hungarian government particularly resisted the advice of experts, who called for greater vigilance in response to the crisis. Instead, it sought public opinion on the reopening issue through an online questionnaire.
A Politico report this month found that Hungary, despite having Russian, Chinese and Western vaccines, had one of the lowest coronavirus inoculation rates in the European Union.
Some municipalities asked the Hungarian government to allow them to establish vaccination points to streamline the process, but they were rejected. Critics say the Orban government wants all the praise for providing people with vaccines, even if it means slower vaccinations in cities – some of which, like Budapest, the capital, are controlled by the opposition.
“There is total chaos in the shooting administration and the provision of documentation,” said Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony, an opposition politician widely seen as a potential candidate for prime minister in 2022.
Orban’s opponents, long unable to form a united front against him, recently agreed to launch a collective challenge to his party in next year’s national elections. Critics criticized the government’s obscure process of securing vaccines and medical equipment.
“Obviously, it would be much more effective to involve municipalities” in launching the vaccine, said Karacsony. “But they are not going to do that, because they don’t want the opposition to take advantage of it.”
Hana de Goeij reported from Prague, and Benjamin Novak of Budapest. Andrew Higgins contributed reporting from Warsaw.