City of Prague announces new online testing map, mandatory disinfection

The Security Council of the Capital City of Prague convened a special meeting late Friday afternoon to discuss the spread of the coronavirus in the metropolis. The council has announced several new measures regarding the continued ramping up of precautions throughout Prague and ongoing tracing efforts.

Among the new measures, from Monday, September 14, businesses that sell goods or provide services must provide disinfectant for patrons and employees to wash their hands upon entering the premises.

The Prague Hygiene Station also now prohibits catering establishments from opening between midnight to six o’clock in the morning from Saturday, September 12 (the exception being establishments such as employee canteens that don’t serve the public).

“It is now a priority for Prague to ensure that individual consumption points are used evenly. It should not happen that some places are congested and others are underused. We also want to reactivate the volunteers to help the hygiene station with tracing the infected contacts,” said Prague mayor, Zdeněk Hřib.

The city is working on the creation of an online map of sampling points in the capital which will published online. The map should include not only basic information, but ideally data on the occupancy and waiting times of individual places.

“Unfortunately, the information published by the state is insufficient and there are unnecessary queues in many sampling points, even though there is free capacity in other places. The Security Council also instructed the City Department of Health to find out the capacities and situation in individual accredited sampling laboratories, both in the capital city of Prague and in the Central Bohemian Region,” said Petr Hlubuček, Deputy Mayor of Prague.

The Security Council of the Capital City of Prague also spoke about tracing and the capacity of the Hygienic Station of the Capital City of Prague which has recently been overwhelmed. Prague, in cooperation with the Czech Red Cross, will be seeking volunteers who would help the hygienists after training.

“Medics from Prague medical faculties will help with the staffing of mobile testing. Regarding tracing, we agreed with the Hygiene Station that in order to strengthen staff, registered volunteers from the Czech Red Cross will be contacted for cooperation, who have already shown great dedication and ability to act during the first wave of the pandemic,” said councillor for social policy and health care Milena Johnová.

The Security Council also decided on voting in elections for people in quarantine or solitary confinement.

“In the forthcoming elections to the Senate, in cooperation with the army, we have begun preparation of so-called drive-in polling stations for people in quarantine. These will be available, for example, at Letná, or in the car park behind the Prosek Polyclinic on Wednesday, September 30, or on Wednesday, October 7, always from 7 am to 3 pm,” said mayor Hřib.

Prague, along with five new districts are yellow, with an increased coronavirus risk, on the Czech updated traffic lights map of the infection, and the number of the green districts with a mild risk has risen from 10 to 40, the Health Ministry announced today.