Czech Health Minister: No more mask mandate when country is 75% vaccinated

The Czech Republic will be able to repeal restrictive measures including the requirement to wear a respirator in many indoor locations including shops and public transport vehicles when about 75 percent of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch stated in a TV interview today.

Vojtěch estimated that the 75 percent threshold could be reached by the end of the autumn. Currently, about 54 percent of the Czech population is vaccinated against Covid-19.

According to the Czech Medical Chamber, collective immunity will be reached when 85-90 percent of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19.

"We can repeal the measures, given the higher vaccination coverage, this is the message we have today," Vojtěch stated on the TV program Otázky Václava Moravce (Václav Moravec's Questions).

"Let's reach at least 75 percent [of the population] vaccinated and then we can talk, as they do in other countries, about repealing the measures." 

The measures that could be repealed include those related to wearing face masks indoors, as well as regulations governing large events that require testing or proof of vaccination.

According to Vojtěch, the primary goal now is to convince more people to get vaccinated. The Minister added that mandatory vaccinations were not being considered, and that the walk-in vaccination centers in shopping centers and other locations that don't require an appointment would continue to operate.

The Czech Health Ministry had previously aimed to achieve collective immunity by the end of August with 70 percent of the population vaccinated. But the number of vaccines administered did not reach this ratio, and the estimated percentage of the population required to be vaccinated to reach collective immunity was raised due to the more contagious delta variant.

"The original variant had a reproductive number such that collective immunity was estimated at 70 percent," Milan Kubek, President of the Czech Medical Chamber, stated on the TV program. "The delta mutation requires 85 to 90 percent of the population to either be vaccinated or have contracted the disease."

"I don't think we have a chance to achieve that collective immunity this season," added Kubek, "but we must try to get as many people vaccinated and as get many people as possible a booster dose, so that the effects of the wave that is starting now are as low as possible."