When the Czech Republic declared a state of emergency back in March, there were still fewer than 200 diagnosed cases of the disease. But this was enough for the government to close the country’s borders, ban all meetings of more than two people, shut schools and order a general lockdown. Yesterday, on a day when the number of new cases fell from 250 to just 235, the government declared that masks would have to be worn to events of more than 100 people. It also reduced the maximum event size from 1,000 to 500. Over 5,000 Czechs are currently considered to be infected with Covid-19, while 9,134 have officially recovered and there have been 364 deaths. Having managed to avoid any serious health crisis in the first wave of the pandemic with draconian measures, the government now appears to be trying to implement a less economically disastrous strategy.
