According to Minister of Health Adam Vojtěch, the Covid-19 epidemic in the Czech Republic became the epidemic of the unvaccinated. According to data on the spread of the disease, of the newly infected people, 74 percent are unvaccinated. In the case of hospitalizations, the share is 63 percent. If vaccination coverage increased, it would be possible to repeal all anti-epidemic measures “easily tomorrow,” the minister said at a press conference.
In this or next week, according to the prediction presented by the director of the Institute of Health Information and Statistics Ladislav Dušek, the whole of the Czech Republic will reach the incidence of 300 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week. The maximum number can be about 7,000 cases per week. By the end of the year, Czechia will have around 2,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19, warned Dušek.
According to Vojtěch, there are younger people in hospitals than before. Those in intensive care units are around 60 years of age on average. In general, the average age of people in hospitals with Covid-19 is 64, while in the case of vaccinated individuals, it is 75.
A year ago, there were 5,000 patients with Covid-19 in hospitals at this time. Currently, their number has exceeded 1,000.
“If the vaccination rate would be a hundred percent, we would record a maximum of one-third of the current numbers,” noted Dušek.
At present, 66 percent of people over the age of 12 in the Czech Republic received a vaccine shot, which is 56.6 percent of the total population and 68 percent among adults. According to Vojtěch, the Czech Republic is below the EU average. Dušek added that neighboring Austria and Germany report about ten percentage points more, and Portugal even 90 percent.
The lower vaccination rate, around 50 percent, is in the younger generation, while in seniors over 65 years of age, the rate is about 83 percent. However, after six months from the first dose, the effectiveness of vaccination significantly weakens, according to experts, and a third booster dose is needed. There are still about 400,000 seniors who have not had Covid-19 and are not vaccinated.
