With the pace of confirmed coronavirus infections picking up speed, schools are being closed in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. This morning the Czech government ordered all schools to shut until further notice and banned all public events more than 100 people. The decision goes into effective March 10 at 18:00. In Romania, where schools have also been shuttered, the measure is only scheduled to be in force until March 22, but the government said it could be extended as necessary. Bratislava’s mayor announced on Monday that kindergartens and elementary schools would be closed for the next five days, after the 7th confirmed case of coronavirus was confirmed.
In Prague it was the confirmation of the presence of the COVID 19 in the system of a taxi driver that sparked the Czech government’s aggressive response. Not only were authorities having trouble locating all the customers he’d carried recently, but it’s unclear how he came to be infected. The Ministry of Health took this as a sign that community spread of the disease was now taking place. Czech kindergartens are exempt from the closing orders are all businesses, stores and shopping centers. The Czech Republic is now measuring the temperature of Czech and foreign drivers crossing the country’s borders and has so far taken six people in for testing. Poland, too, is monitoring its borders with the Czech Republic and Germany.
In Hungary, where there are currently 12 confirmed cases of the virus but no move has been made as of yet to close schools. However, the Hungarian National bank announced that following the example of China and South Korea, it would be disinfecting its supplies of paper money to prevent money from spreading the disease.
