Coronavirus update, Sept. 2, 2021: Plzeň-area school sees 23 positive Covid tests on first day

Antigen tests yesterday at a school in Rokycany revealed 23 cases of coronavirus. "We are not underestimating the situation. The positively tested children were moved to three isolation rooms and we immediately informed the parents," school principal Bohumil Nosek said, according to daily Deník. All schoolchildren with a positive antigen test will have to pass PCR tests. Michal Bartoš, the director of the Regional Hygiene Station in Plzeň told Deník that 40 positive pupils were detected throughout the region on Wednesday, but numbers were not complete. If the positivity of the pupils is confirmed, hygiene with the school will individually address the next step. Only individuals or the whole class can go to quarantine.

Insurance companies will now reimburse general practitioners CZK 380 for each senior they persuaded to vaccinate against Covid-19, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said, according to new server iDnes.cz. According to him, it was proposed by insurance companies. The contribution of CZK 380 to doctors concerns people over 65 who come to the practitioner for the first vaccine. The chairman of the Association of General Practitioners, Petr Šonka, does not agree with the wording concerning the article that appeared in the media. "I have to oppose the prime minister's wording 'contribution for persuasions,'" he said. According to him, it is rather a financial compensation for the time that the doctor spends communicating with the patient and explaining the benefits or assessing the risk of vaccination in a particular person.

If a student passes a positive test for Covid-19 at school, the whole class or group will not be allowed to go to school. The exception will only apply to the vaccinated and children who have recovered from Covid, news server iDnes reported. The rule will apply after the third test on Sept. 9, according to the manual from the Ministry of Education. The whole class can be quarantined at the end of next week at the earliest. They can only return to school if a classmate's positive test is not confirmed or they have a negative test themselves. Pupils are only entitled to distance learning if at least half of the class or teaching group is quarantined.

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"In most cases, people begin to excrete the virus a few days before they develop the infection. The great advantage of wastewater monitoring is that this method is also completely independent of the willingness of infected people to undergo clinical testing, is significantly cheaper and also allows monitoring the spread of new mutations. We can thus obtain information about the presence of the infection up to two weeks earlier than we would find out from the tests," he added. If the virus is present, children and staff will be take PCR tests. The program will be expanded if it is successful.

The Czech Republic saw 26 Covid-related deaths in total in August, 12 more than in July, which was the lowest Covid fatality rate since the epidemic outbreak in March 2020. In August roughly 2,400 fewer Covid cases occurred in total compared to August 2020. When compared to July 2021, August saw 285 fewer cases. Concerning Covid-related deaths, 45 people died last August while 30,404 Czechs have died with the infection so far. Recently, Covid-19 has been spreading most in Prague where 26 new cases per 100,000 reported in the past seven days. The Karlovy Vary region follows with 20 cases and South Bohemia follows with 18. In contrast, the Hradec Králové region has the lowest incidence rate of five cases.

Dates	Number of Covid cases	Covid-related deaths
August 2020	8058	45
July 2021	5954	14
August 2021	5669	26
Total since March 1, 2020	1679476	30404

The Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) retroactively declared the regulation of zoos and botanical gardens from the turn of April and May to be illegal. The disputed part of the measures of the Ministry of Health had a widespread impact, although at that time it was no longer possible to consider the entire state as the focus of the spread of Covid-19. The decision is available on the official notice board, following dozens of similar judgments by which the court draws attention to the illegal passages of coronavirus measures of the Ministry of Health.

There were 261 new Covid cases reported for Wednesday, up from 245 a week earlier. It is the third day in a row that numbers have risen compared to the previous week. Hospitalizations compared to the previous day stayed the same at 53, but the number of serious cases rose by one to reach nine. No deaths were reported for the third day in a row, and there are no deaths so far for September. The incidence number of new cases per 100,000 people remained at 13. The reproduction number R remained at 1.05, above the break-even point of 1.0 for the eighth day in a row. For Prague, the incidence number was 26, down form 28 a day earlier. The R number dropped slightly to 0.87.