On Wednesday, the government decided to tighten the measures against the COVID-19 outbreak despite the original promise to reevaluate the situation only after 14 days since the introduction of the original ones. The new measures will aim at limiting the interactions between the people by restricting public contacts.
The retail stores and services will be closed from this Thursday, 6:00 AM. Grocery stores, drugstores, and pharmacies will be open even in the shopping centers. The same rules were announced in the Czech Republic last March during the first wave of COVID-19.
People are allowed to leave home only for very limited reasons: work, shopping, and visiting doctors. Retails will be closed until the end of the state of emergency, which is on November 3rd. Stores, which will be allowed to work are groceries, pharmacies, drugstores, small pet stores, optical stores, tobacco points, gas stations. Such services as hairdressers, manicure, pedicure, and massage will be closed.
All of the restaurants continue to work through the takeaway windows. Compared to the measures in March, Roman Prymula, the Minister of Health, won’t assign seniors with specific hours at the grocery stores because he doesn’t feel like it’s an effective measure.
As for the state administrations, the working hours will be limited to five hours, two days a week. They will prefer the written or telephone method of communication.
Restrictions are also connected to communication. No more than two people are allowed to meet, unless they are from the same household. Demonstrations are also limited from 500 to 100 participants. A maximum of ten people can attend weddings and funerals. Also, Prymula added that first-grade students won’t be able to return to schools on November 2. Further measures will depend on the numbers of cases.
Andrej Babiš, the Prime Minister, stated that strict measures are important to avoid the “collapse of the healthcare system” which can happen between November 7 and 11. Remarkably, previously, Roman Prymula stated that the healthcare capacity should be sufficient for these dates.
This Tuesday, the Czech Republic confirmed 11 984 new cases of COVID-19. Also, the Czech Republic is still in the first place of newly infected per 100 000 people in the European Union.
