Czech Republic coronavirus updates, October 6: 3,119 new cases, Prague launches testing website

There were 3,119 new COVID-19 cases reported in the Czech Republic yesterday, according to the latest data from the Czech Health Ministry updated this morning.

Monday was the third time since the start of the epidemic the number of new daily cases exceeded 3,000. It follows record highs on Friday and over the weekend as the rise in new COVID-19 cases in the Czech Republic continues to grow.

Since March, there have now been a total of 85,556 COVID-19 cases, the majority of which have come in the past month. Currently, there are about 38,000 known active cases.

About 3.4% of those diagnosed with COVID-19 are currently in Czech hospitals, but those numbers have been quickly rising with the recent surge in new cases.

There are currently 1,242 COVID-19 patients in Czech hospitals, 265 of whom are considered to be in serious condition. Both of those numbers have roughly doubled over the past week.

Yesterday, 11 COVID-19 deaths were reported, following a record high of 24 on Sunday. Over the past week, there have been 122 COVID-19-related deaths. The Czech Republic considers anyone who was diagnosed with COVID-19 and later passes away as a COVID-19-related death, regardless of other primary or contributing factors.

Over the past week, Uherské Hradiště has seen the highest rate of infections, at about 380 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents. Náchod has reported 281 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over that span, while Liberec has reported about 260 new cases per 100,000 residents.

In Prague, there have been roughly 239 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.

With 457 new COVID-19 cases reported yesterday, there are now 8,505 known active COVID-19 cases in the Czech capital, which has a population of about 1.3 million people. Prague also has the country's largest share of COVID-19-related deaths, with a total of 173.

The Czech capital, along with Prague-East, Prague-West, and Uherské Hradiště, are currently red in the Czech Health Ministry's traffic light map of the country, indicating a continued upward trend of community COVID-19 transmission.

To help ease the burden on COVID-19 testing centers, the City of Prague has launched a new website covid.praha.eu. The website gathers data from each of the city's testing centers to display available dates for testing along with links to each center's reservation system.

From yesterday, another state of emergency is in effect in the Czech Republic. Under the state of emergency, a series of new measures have gone into effect largely intended to limit the number of people at gatherings and particularly risky activities; these measures largely affect the operation of schools, restaurants, social activities, shops and services and sports and fitness activities. See here for a full list of new regulations that are now in effect.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, Czech Health Minister Roman Prymula urged members of the public to follow the new measures, saying that if more than a third of the population did not respect them, the current measures would need to be tightened.

On Friday, October 9, Prymula will outline his further plans for curbing the spread of COVID-19 in the Czech Republic. Roughly 60 additional measures are currently being considered, according to the health minister.