Coronavirus update, July 27, 2021: You can dance if you want to! Health Ministry loosens venue restrictions

Up to 7,000 people outside and 3,000 inside will be allowed to watch sports and cultural events as of Aug. 1, instead of the current 5,000 and 2,000, respectively, Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtěch told journalists. The mandatory distance between the standing spectators will be reduced to two square meters from four. As of the new season of the first and second football divisions, the permitted number of spectators will be increased. If there is the capacity under 5,000 places, they may be quite full. When it comes to the auditoriums with 5,000-10,000 men, there can be maximally 5,000 spectators, while the stadiums with 10,000 persons and more can now fill up to one-half of the auditoriums, provided there is the distance of at least one seat. The government passed the measures because the epidemiological situation is stagnating or maybe even improving, he added.

The Delta variant of Covid-19, formerly called Indian, was confirmed in 80–90 percent out of 2,200 samples in the past two weeks, while the Delta plus is suspected to occur in 20 percent of the cases, but was proven in one case only so far, the Czech State Health Institute (SZÚ) wrote. The Alpha, or British, variant occurred in 12 percent of cases, which makes it the second most common in the country. Both the Beta and Gamma variants were revealed in fewer than 1 percent of samples. Between July 9 and 23, experts in the Czech Republic analyzed 2,186 samples. A laboratory in the Karlovy Vary Region detected 20 samples that might correspond to the Delta plus mutation. The samples were sent to full genome sequencing.

Vojtěch said within the European gift, the government could earmark the priority countries to which it wants to send the vaccines. These are, for example, Ukraine, Georgia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mali, Thailand and Bhutan, Vojtěch said. Outside the European plan Covax, there are the gifts of 250,000 doses for Vietnam and 30,000 doses for Taiwan, he added. Vojtěch confirmed what Prime Minister Andrej Babis said before. Slovakia will receive 1 million doses from Pfizer-BioNTech from the Czech quota instead of the Czech Republic and will pay for it. Vojtěch said the Czech Republic had ordered about 14 million doses from this supplier and now the amount would fall to 13 million. The Czech Republic has ordered 23.9 million doses for CZK 8.5 billion. Vojtěch said it would not be able to use them all.

The Czech government agreed to release up to CZK 27 million from the EU Solidarity Fund for more precise PCR Covid testing at schools, Education Minister Robert Plaga tweeted. The amount should cover two testing rounds in September, and the schools that will prefer PCR tests to cheaper and less reliable antigen tests will get CZK 200 per PCR test. The same amount apiece was paid at the end of the last school year, too. Some 365,000 PCR tests for CZK 73 million in total were carried out in May and June. As the Education Ministry was allocated CZK 100 million for them, the amount for September corresponds to the remaining money. The government already ordered that children will be tested in the first days of the school year three times with state-provided antigen tests. If a school opts for PCR tests, it has to arrange the testing on its own.

The pandemic continues to recede, though there was a jump in the number hospitalized. The number of new cases reported for Monday was 206, down from the previous week’s 218. The index number of newly infected per 100,000 over seven days dropped from 13 to 12. The reproduction number R was steady at 0.87. The number of hospitalized people jumped from 41 to 49, and the number of people in a serious condition rose from five to six. No deaths were reported for the fifth day in a row. Since the start of vaccination, over 10 million doses have now been given out, with 4.6 million having completed vaccination. In Prague, where the pandemic situation is worst, the index number dropped from 32 to 31. The R number remained at 0.78.