The Czech Republic declares new State of Emergency

The country’s health care system is teetering on the brink

Last night the Czech Republic declared a new coronavirus state of emergency. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said it comes into force today and will remain in place until at least March 28th.

A new pandemic law was also passed. It allows health authorities and regional governments to shut down a broad cross sections of businesses, trade, production, and both public and private events in order to tackle the pandemic.

Both moves comes after days of fierce partisan bickering infuriating medical experts. Immunologist Václav Hořejší, of the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Molecular Genetics told the Czech Republic’s Radiožurnál “I don’t understand. We are on the brink. Everyone sees it, and at the same time politicians are arguing about complete nonsense. I feel like I’m in a madhouse.”

Yesterday in the Czech Republic coronavirus numbers continued to soar with 14,572 new infections and already today another 14,676 infections have been recorded.

The Czech Republic is in a dire situation. It currently has one of the highest rates of COVID deaths in the world, ICU capacity is virtually maxed out, and the country’s own health minister says the health care system could collapse within week or two.

To make matters worse the U.K. COVID variant is spreading rapidly now making up over 50% of all infection cases in the country. The Czech Republic has also confirmed the first infections of the South African variant, which is more vaccine resistant.

Further complicating matters the Czech Republic has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe. It recently delayed a nationwide vaccine public information campaign until the end of March.

Prime Minister Babiš is pleading with other European Union countries to donate vaccine doses. He says they also negotiating with Germany and Poland to take severe COVID patients to try and ease the pressure on the health care system.