The government will discuss to quarantine the whole Czech Republic this afternoon.

What that exactly means will likely be disclosed at a special government press conference at 6 pm.

“People should stay at home, take care of older people, and today we are likely to take further measures,” said Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO). “Many people do not respect quarantine, but the virus is spreading,” he added.

People could basically just go to work and do groceries.

“If we declare quarantine of the whole Czech Republic, it must have some rules,” the Prime Minister said. According to him, it is not possible for people to violate quarantine. Penalties of up to CZK 3 million may be imposed for violations. At the same time, all the baked goods in the shops will be packaged, and the baskets to be disinfected. However, according to the Prime Minister, public transport will continue to work. “We also want to increase public transport so that there is no such concentration of people,” he added. Interior Minister Jan Hamáček said that the situation is developing dynamically and that this is why all of the preventative measures are being enacted in order to slow down the epidemic as much as possible. “We will ask hospitals to postpone scheduled operations. We need those hospitals to focus only on coronavirus,” the Prime Minister added. This also applies to ambulatory doctors and dentists. The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the Czech Republic has now reached 231. Over 5,000 people have been quarantined. Two-thirds of those diagnosed were infected abroad, one third within the Czech Republic. The most common source of infection is Italy, with 74.5 percent of people who tested positive in Czechia having contracted the disease there.

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