Czech police and military forces have established 500 checkpoints across the country to impose new strict limits on free movement
Some 30,000 police officers were involved in an unprecedented operation to impose a new strict restriction that prohibits people from traveling to other counties, unless they go to work or have to care for relatives.
It is part of a series of measures that went into effect on Monday, as the Central European country seeks to slow the spread of a highly contagious virus variant found for the first time in Britain.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the aim of the measure is to prevent the country’s hospitals from collapsing under the stress of caring for patients with COVID-19.
Amid a wave of infections from the UK variant, of the 7,049 COVID-19 patients in Czech hospitals on Sunday, 1,507 needed intensive care. Both numbers are close to the records set last week.
Since the Czech Republic registered the first three people infected with coronavirus on March 1 last year, the 10.7 million nation has seen more than 1.24 million confirmed cases with 20,469 deaths.
The seven-day average of new daily cases rose from 70.75 new cases per 100,000 people on February 14 to 109.82 per 100,000 people on Sunday, the worst per capita rate in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.
As of Monday, people in the Czech Republic who go out to exercise should not leave their municipality. Nurseries and schools for children with disabilities were also closed, while only stores selling essentials remained open.
Experts, however, say the measures do not go far enough to stop the virus.
“I consider the most important measures to be those that have not been applied,” biochemist Jan Trnka told Czech public radio. “This is to limit contacts at work, especially in the industry.”
The government also approved a plan to require mandatory mass testing of employees. It will start at companies with more than 250 employees on Wednesday, followed by those with at least 50 employees on Friday.
Industry and Commerce Minister Karel Havlicek said that about 10,000 companies and companies are expected to test 2.1 million workers in the next two weeks.
Havlicek previously rejected calls to close at least some plants and factories as “unrealistic”.
Meanwhile, the country is accelerating its vaccination program with general practitioners entering vaccination centers. More than 650,000 doses of vaccine have been distributed. Babis said 1 million vaccines are expected to arrive through an EU program in March and another 2.6 million in April.
As a sign of solidarity, three states in neighboring Germany sent the Czech Republic 15,000 naps of the AstraZeneca vaccine to try to control contagion at the border.
Babis and pro-Russian President Milos Zeman also said they would use the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, even if it is not approved by the European Medicines Agency.
———
Follow all AP pandemic coverage:
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine
https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak