Coronavirus update, June 30, 2021: Prague Covid situation is worsening, R number on the rise

Laboratories have confirmed 120 cases of the coronavirus delta variant, previously denoted as Indian, in the Czech Republic, according to a report from the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for Flu and Respiration Viral Diseases of the State Health Institute (SZÚ) released. The cases have occurred in Prague and the Liberec, Ústí, Moravia-Silesia, Hradec Králové and Vysočina regions. Besides, the first case of the lambda variant, now dominant in Peru, has also appeared, the report said. When it comes to other variants, 65 cases of the beta, or South African variant, have been recorded in several separate clusters and 21 cases of the gamma variant, previously called Brazilian, in Prague, Brno, Mělník, Hradec Králové, and Pardubice regions. In the Central Bohemia Region, the lambda variant has been seen, probably originating from Germany. The British variant is still dominant in the Czech Republic.

Health Minister Adam Vojtěch said due to the spread of the delta mutation, he would propose that people inoculated with only one vaccine dose should have to present a negative test in order to prove that they are not infected. People coming back from holiday will have to present it at work, too. On Thursday late afternoon, there will be an urgent government meeting to deal with this. The change is likely to take effect next week, Vojtěch said. This would probably refer to holidays within the Czech Republic, too. Experts said that a careful examination of the incidence of the new variants and preferential tracing of the infected persons may prevent the onset of another wave of the epidemic. Vojtěch said that the Delta variant was more infectious than the previous variants of the virus. Its reproduction number is eight, which means that on average another eight persons are infected from one positively tested person.

The Health Ministry has banned all people in the Czech Republic from traveling to Russia as of Thursday and to Tunisia as of next week due to the spread of more dangerous Covid mutations, according to ministry protective measure released today. Tunisia is one of the Czechs' most popular summer holiday destination, according to travel agencies. The protective measure bans all citizens of the Czech Republic and foreigners with residence in its territory from traveling to the countries with an extremely high risk of Covid-19 infection. The Health Ministry writes in its justification that the ban should prevent further cases of new coronavirus mutations from being brought to the Czech Republic and spread in the country. According to the ministry data, Russia has registered a considerable rise in the number of the Covid infected mainly because of the spread of the more infectious Delta variant. In Tunisia, the coronavirus incidence has been rising continuously since May and in the past weeks, the share of those tested positive has been over 30 percent.

Only 49 percent of Czechs fear the Covid-19 infection now, which has been the lowest share since the epidemic outbreak last March when 80 percent of them feared it, according to a poll conducted by the Ipsos agency in June. Nevertheless, people are awaiting the autumn with fears. If the epidemic situation worsened after the summer holiday, about two-thirds of them fear that the common health care would not be available, services and shops would be closed again and the number of the coronavirus infected would rise. Young people aged 18 to 29 and students feel the least threatened with Covid-19. The people who feel threatened are also more skeptical about the virus being under control soon, the poll shows. Most people or 80 percent are still of the view that Covid-19 would not get under control sooner than in a few months.

There were 160 new cases of coronavirus on Tuesday, and increase of almost 50 percent over last week when there were 112. On Tuesday, Prague has 54 new Covid cases against 30 from last Tuesday. The number of confirmed cases per 100,000 over the past seven days remained at seven, but for Prague the number rose to 21, according to Health Ministry data. Nationwide, the reproduction number R rose to 1.11, meaning that the pandemic is once again spreading. It had been below 1.0 since mid-April. There are 57 patients with Covid in the hospitals. 105,910 doses of vaccine were administered. No deaths were reported for the third day in a row, but the death toll was revised upward to 30,303.