Coronavirus update, June 18, 2021: After a year, Americans can to travel to the Czech Republic

US citizens will be able to visit the Czech Republic as tourists from Monday June 21, Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhánek announced on Twitter. They will need proof of vaccination or negative test to use restaurants or hotels.”Finally, the list of green states from which tourists can come to the Czech Republic will expand,” he said. Tourists from the U.S. had not been allowed for about a year. The EU is expected to announce today that Americans can travel to the bloc without vaccination if they have a negative test.

People will be able to return to the Czech Republic from the dark-red highest risk countries without the self-quarantine duty if they had their Covid vaccination, with a vaccine approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), completed 14 days ago at least. On the travel map, the dark-red states posing a very high risk of infection are mainly non-EU countries including Britain. Those facing the PCR test duty on return to Czech Republic will be able to have themselves tested immediately on arrival, while up to now they have had to undergo a test between the fifth and the 14th day following their arrival.

There was no increase in mental troubles requiring medical treatment among the Czech population during the Covid pandemic in 2020, according to a survey presented by experts, who, nevertheless, admit that an increase may still come since it takes mental diseases rather long to develop. The number of patients visiting out-patient psychiatrists' offices was the same in 2020 as in the preceding years, showed the survey conducted by the Psychiatric Clinic of Prague's General Teaching Hospital (VFN) and the Health Information and Statistics Institute (ÚZIS). Unlike the Czech survey, some foreign studies indicated that people's mental health deteriorated during the pandemic.

Entrepreneurs have been demanding more than CZK 12 billion from the Czech state as compensation for the government restrictions of businesses introduced over the coronavirus pandemic, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) reported. The Interior Ministry and the Health Ministry, which have received the requests, do not want to pay out any compensation yet and they will wait for the results of court disputes with the entrepreneurs, MfD says. Czech courts have canceled the government anti-epidemic restrictions in several cases. In the recent weeks, the Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) issued rulings declaring that restaurants, shops, ski resorts and swimming pools had been closed against law.

Based on the number of coronavirus infections in the last 14 days, the worst situation in the European Union is now in Latvia with 154 cases per 100,000 inhabitants; a week ago it was third with 203 cases. Denmark was second with 153, a week ago it was the first with 215 cases. The third is the Netherlands with 139 cases, a week ago it was second with 204 cases. The Czech Republic, which was the worst from the beginning of February to mid-March, is in 21st place with 36 cases. A week ago it was also also 21st out of 27 EU countries with 52 cases, according to data from the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC). In terms of the absolute number of deaths from coronavirus infection,the top five countries are the United States, Brazil, India, Russia, and Mexico. Together, they account for 50 percent of all deaths worldwide. Based on percentage of population, Peru, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, and Gibraltar have the most deaths.

There were 163 cases of Covid-19 on Thursday which is 14 percent fewer than a week, according to Health Ministry data. There were 107 hospital patients with Covid-19 on Thursday, the fewest since the beginning of last August. Some 14 people were in serious condition. About 1,000 people were hospitalized about a month ago, and about two hundred patients were in serious condition. Despite the decline in the number of new infections, the share of positive tests increased. Compared to the previous week, on Thursday, as in the previous days, there was a significant decrease in those tested. The incidence number, meaning the number of people infected in the past week per 100,000 inhabitants, has stagnated at nine. This number is used by the government to determine anti-epidemic measures.