Czech Republic reports 3,291 new COVID-19 cases

There were 3,291 new covid-19 cases in the Czech Republic on Sunday, about 690 less than a week ago. At the same time, it is the lowest Sunday increase since mid-February. According to the Ministry of Health, the number of patients hospitalized with coronavirus remained almost unchanged in the week-on-week comparison; on Sunday, there were 8,362 covid patients in Czech hospitals. Of these, 1930 was in serious condition. A week earlier, there were 120 fewer.

The reproduction number, indicating the average number of other people infected with one positive test, has increased by a hundredth to 0.94 to date.

According to hygienists, over 1.4 million people had become infected since the beginning of last March, when the presence of a new type of coronavirus was first confirmed in the Czech Republic. About 1.2 million recovered, while 23,379 people with a proven covid died. Nearly half of them died this year. This year’s daily maximum is 230 deaths from last Monday. Since the outbreak of the epidemic after last November 3, it is the second-worst result when the ministry registers 262 deaths with covid.

Laboratories performed more than 49,000 tests for the new coronavirus on Sunday, with 85 percent of the samples being screened for antigen tests that are less sensitive than PCR tests. Compared to last Sunday, the total number of tests increased by 4,700. The share of new positive cases in the number of tests on Sunday was approximately 31 percent as a week earlier, while on Saturday, it was 34 percent.

However, the number of patients with covid in hospital has changed minimally compared to Saturday, as have severe cases. Medical facilities thus continue to face high workloads, despite ongoing vaccination against the disease.

On Sunday, paramedics administered 11,199 doses of covid-19 vaccines, 360 less than a week ago. On weekends, however, vaccination is significantly less than on weekdays. On Saturday, most people received the vaccine on the weekend since the vaccination began, over 16,800, but during the week, it was over 50,000 people. The Ministry registered the 50,036 vaccinations reported on Thursday, which was the highest number of doses administered one day since the start of vaccination in December.

According to the ministry, 12 percent of beds in intensive care units (ICUs) and anesthesiology and resuscitation departments (AROs) and 24 percent of standard beds with oxygen were available in hospitals this morning, as in previous days. The reserve of unoccupied places for covid patients is still on reprofiled beds intended during regular operation to provide care of another type of expertise.