According to the Czech Ministry of Health, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus has now topped one million since the beginning of the pandemic. In other developments, the country now has the highest number of new infections in the EU. However, the soon-to-arrive AstraZeneca vaccines are found to reduce the transmission of the virus up to 67%. Photo Credit: Freepik / Illustrative photo.
Czech Rep., Feb 3 (BD) – The number of COVID-19 cases is on the rise again in the Czech Republic, as 9,057 cases were confirmed on Tuesday. According to the Czech Ministry of Health, the total number of cases is now over one million since the beginning of the pandemic. There are currently 93,043 active cases, among them 5,811 patients in hospital. So far, 16,683 people have died. Based on current data, the Czech Republic now has the highest number of new infections in the EU-27, with Portugal and Spain following in second and third.
The Czech Republic’s neighbours are showing lower numbers of daily infections. Austria is slowly relaxing control measures, while Slovakia and Germany are under strict measures and do not plan to change the rules anytime soon due to the growing threat of new mutations around Europe. Yet, Germany, Slovakia and Austria’s adoption of strict measures for a long time seem to have worked, as all have succeeded in lowering case numbers.
Former Health Minister Roman Prymula, an epidemiologist, told ČTK that the new mutations cause much faster infections: “People can get infected in seconds, and vaccinated people may need to be vaccinated again.” On the other hand, good news comes from AstraZeneca, whose vaccines should be arriving in the Czech Republic from next week. Oxford University said on Tuesday that the AstraZeneca vaccine reduces the transmission of the virus up to 67%. A single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine is found to be 76% effective, rising to 82% after a second dose administered after three months.
