Coronavirus update, Aug. 17, 2021: Back to school with tests and masks; culture rules relaxed

Children will get tested for Covid at the beginning of the new school year on Sept. 1, 6 and 9, and those who would not, would have to wear a respirator, the cabinet decided yesterday, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch has told media. On the three days, the children can get tested at school or at an official testing point and then produce their test result at school. Vojtěch said the three-times testing duty applies to students of elementary and secondary schools. They will undergo antigen tests for Covid-19 that will be supplied to them by the state. First graders can get tested on the second school-year day only, Sept. 2. Schools can also use PCR tests, but have to acquire them by themselves. If so, the state would subsidize them by CZK 200 per a test kit. Children who are not tested will have to keep their nose and mouth covered but will not be excluded from the class, Vojtěch said. The conditions of the testing will also apply to school employees. Exempted from the testing will be those with completed vaccination and those who had Covid-19 in the past 180 days.

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Cultural and sport events in the Czech Republic can see the auditorium or sport hall capacity filled at 100 percent as of Sept. 1, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch told a press conference after a cabinet meeting. At events with the audience under 3,000, people will be let in with a negative coronavirus test, vaccination certificate, or a certificate confirming that they underwent Covid-19 in the past 180 days, whatever the proportions between the three groups may be. If the audience exceeds 3,000, at least a half of the visitors will have to be people with completed Covid vaccination or those who underwent Covid, and the other half of seats can be filled with those with a negative Covid test. Vojtěch called these rules a fair-play agreement with which representatives of the Culture Ministry as well as the sports sector agreed.

The Czech Republic will start acknowledging the Covid vaccination of people from outside the EU as of Aug. 23 if their vaccine is a type approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the World Health Organisation (WHO) for emergency use, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch said. The change in the acknowledgment of the vaccination certificates will apply, for example, to the British, who are often vaccinated with AstraZeneca produced in India and who have had to undergo a Covid test on arrival in the Czech Republic so far. For people's family members from the countries, from which it has been difficult to arrive due to the Covid epidemic so far, visas will be issued in a standard way. This will not apply to extreme-risk countries, Vojtěch told media after a cabinet meeting.

Tunisia, Russia, and India are among the states the Czech Republic will delete from its list of the countries posing and extreme risk of Covid infection as of Aug. 23, Health Minister Adam Vojtěch said after a cabinet meeting. The Health Ministry urgently recommends that Czechs should not travel to the extreme infection risk states. The list will still contain Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru, Nepal, Mozambique and Tanzania (including the Zanzibar and Pemba islands), Vojtěch said. On the other hand Botswana, Eswatini, South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be deleted from the list and restrictions will be lifted for those arriving from these countries as of next Monday, Vojtěch said. See our full story here.

The more contagious Delta mutation is still dominant in the Czech Republic as it accounts for roughly 95 percent of positive coronavirus tests, the National Institute of Public Health (SZÚ) told journalists, referring to the data at its disposal. This is 2 percent less than a week ago. Since June, the Delta variant started spreading in the Czech Republic. The Delta variant was detected in roughly 95 percent and the Alpha or British mutation in fewer than 2 percent of all cases. In South Moravia, two isolated cases of the Lambda variant were detected in July, but they have not spread further, the SZÚ said. There are 20 cases of the suspected Delta plus variant, which is yet to be refuted or confirmed.

There were 210 new cases of coronavirus reported for Monday, up from 167 a week earlier. Some 59 people were hospitalized, up nine from the previous day’s revised figure, with 15 people in serious condition, the same as the day before. No deaths were reported, and the August total is at nine. The incidence number of people infected per 100,000 over seven days remained at 12. The reproduction number R rose very slightly to 1.05, and has been over the break-even point of 1.0 since Aug. 8. For Prague, the incidence number is at 30, up one from the previous day. The R number is at 1.15, down from 1.27 the previous day.