Coronavirus update, Feb. 10, 2021: Czech Republic sees over 10,000 new cases Tuesday

The Czech Republic had over 10,000 new COVID cases for the first time since January 13 on Tuesday when laboratories revealed 10,165 cases, some 1,000 more than a week ago, the Health Ministry's data released this morning show.

 The PES risk index stays at 71 points in the Czech Republic for the fourth day in a row and all four criteria for its calculation, including the reproduction number, have slightly improved as against Tuesday, the Health Ministry's data released this morning show.

The reproduction number, expressing the average number of the people infected from one positively tested person, dropped to 1.02 today from 1.04 on Tuesday.

The British variant, which is 30 to 70 percent more infectious than the common novel coronavirus, was confirmed in 75 out of the analyzed 681 samples in the Czech Republic as of Friday, according to the Public Health Institute (SZÚ) data.

Another delivery of the COVID vaccine from Moderna will arrive in the Czech Republic on Feb. 22, one week later than planned, and there will be only one-half of the agreed quantity, 44,000 doses, the Health Ministry tweeted.

This Thursday, the Czech Republic is supposed to receive 21,000 doses from AstraZeneca. Next week, there will 91,000 doses from Pfizer.

The Czech Chamber of Deputies will deal with the government request to further extend the state of emergency declared over the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday morning, instead of originally planned afternoon, its chairman Radek Vondráčekk said.

The government has asked for the lower house approval of a 30-day prolongation until Tuesday, March 16. Without extension, the state of national emergency expires on Sunday, Feb. 14.

As of now, the minority government of ANO and the Social Democrats (ČSSD) does not have enough support for the proposed sixth prolongation of the emergency.

The Czech Republic and Slovakia have most coronavirus cases per population out of the five Central European countries as Austria, Hungary and Poland are better off, Slovak Health Minister Marek Krajčí said.

According to an analysis of the Slovak Health Ministry, the Czech Republic recorded the biggest number of the infections per 100,000 population, 910, with a large margin in the past two weeks. It was followed by Slovakia with 410. By contrast, Hungary, Poland and Austria had 178–213 coronavirus cases per 100,000 population.

When traveling from the Czech Republic to Slovakia, people must be registered online with some exemptions and if they did not test for coronavirus, they must start a quarantine and undergo the test subsequently.

The European Union’s initiative to get coronavirus vaccines and make them available to all member states has fallen short of the mark, the English service of Radio Prague reported.

So far, just over 3 percent of the EU’s 450 million people have been vaccinated. Both Britain and the United States rolled out their vaccinations programs earlier than the EU.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen nevertheless said she was convinced that the European approach is the right one. She added that since June all 27 EU member states have been on a steering board that meets up to seven times a monthly.