With hospitals in some parts of the Czech Republic filled up, the country turned to Germany and other European countries with a request for help.
Interior Minister Jan Hamacek said on Wednesday neighboring Germany has offered dozens of beds in its hospitals to treat Czech COVID-19 patients. He said 19 of them were immediately ready.
Hamacek added that Switzerland was another country ready to help with 20 beds in its hospitals while offering to take care of the transport of the patients.
Talks were also underway with Poland to provide around 200 beds.
Some hospitals in the western Czech Republic near the German border, the central part of the country around Prague and the Pardubice region east of Prague couldn’t admit any more patients and they have to be transported to clinics elsewhere in the country. It wasn’t immediately clear when patients might be taken abroad.
“It´s a situation we´ve never experienced before,” Martin Netolicky, said the governor of the Pardubice region.
In the latest measures, the government ordered mandatory mass testing of employees in private firms. Those with more than 250 workers started to do it on Wednesday while those with at least 50 employees follow on Friday.
Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlicek said he was planning to propose the same measures for public employees. Health Minister Jan Blatny wanted to order medical personnel from outpatient clinics to serve in hospitals.
Also, specialized clinics that haven’t been treating COVID-19 patients might be ordered to start to do so.
With 1,120 cases, the Czech Republic had by far the biggest 14-day notification rate per 100,000 inhabitants, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
