How the Czech Republic slipped into a Covid disaster, one misstep at a time - CNN
March 1, 2021
“On an epidemiological map of the world, the
Czech Republic shows up as a tiny island of doom and gloom. While the global number of new coronavirus cases has been dropping for six consecutive weeks, the Central European nation of 10 million has been experiencing near record levels of new infections.
A new, more infectious variant of the virus has spread across the country, pushing Czech hospitals to the brink of collapse. The country's death toll has just surpassed 20,000. Its
death rate is among the highest in the world.“
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/czech-republic-europe-covid-19-1.5938504
March 7, 2021
“From best to worst in just one year.
Put another way, winning the opening battle is no guarantee of winning the war.
This is the story of the Czech Republic and COVID-19. This was a country seemingly well prepared — a member of the European Union since 2004 after overthrowing its communist government in 1989, modestly rich and boasting a solid health-care system.
As the virus crept into Europe in early 2020, the Czech government acted. Starting in March of last year, the country of 10.6 million people went into almost total lockdown and stayed locked down for five weeks. Shops, schools, even the borders were shut. Masks had to be worn outside.
The Czech Republic became the poster child of Europe with the lowest number of cases as a percentage of population in the European Union.
But by March 2021, the situation was catastrophic. According to World Health Organization statistics, the Czech Republic now leads the world in new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population — 1,597 as of Saturday.
That's a multiple of the rate in neighbouring countries and more than 10 times the rate in Germany next door, where the rate is 138 per 100,000 over the latest two-week period. More than 21,500 Czechs have died from the virus.“
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Covid wave intensifies in Central Europe
Shockingly high numbers in Czech Republic
March 10, 2021
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