Bells tolled across the Czech Republic at noon Monday to honor those who have died of COVID-19 in one of the hardest-hit European Union countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A 95-year-old man, who is the first known Czech victim, died on March 22, 2020 at Prague\u2019s Bulovka hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The death toll has reached almost 25,000 since the start of the pandemic in the nation of 10.7 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coronavirus infections have been on the decline since the government imposed a tight lockdown earlier this month, but new cases and death rates still remain high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Petr Pospichal, a former anti-Communist dissident who helped organize the remembrance, told Czech public radio that it was the right thing to do for people to observe a minute of silence wherever they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pospichal says it\u2019s also necessary to realize that the pandemic isn\u2019t over yet and people are still dying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country has almost 1.5 million confirmed cases, and 24,810 deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bells tolled across the Czech Republic at noon Monday to honor those who have died of COVID-19 in one of the hardest-hit European Union countries. A 95-year-old man, who is the first known Czech victim, died on March 22, 2020 at Prague\u2019s Bulovka hospital. The death toll has reached almost 25,000 since the start of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n