From the outbreak of the disease premant. Prague is the first to tame the epidemic, people at home are helping it
At the beginning of the epidemic, Prague was sought as the main focus of the epidemic. Now, however, it is taking on the role of a kind of daily, the daily increase in those infected has fallen sharply here. Chief Hygienist Jarmila Rážová explains this by the fact that the inhabitants of the capital comply with the prescribed measures, as evidenced by the figures on mobility.
For eleven days, no more than a thousand new cases appeared in Prague per day, which was almost the rule in the second half of October. At one time, the values were even possible at 1500, and on October 22, they even rose to 1705 new cases. Prague regularly ranked first among the regions in the number of new cases in daily surveys; this Tuesday, laboratories have already detected more cases than in the capital in six regions. In terms of 100,000 inhabitants, even the least newly infected in the Czech Republic came in the capital.
The fact that the epidemic situation in Prague is improving is also evidenced by other data from positive tests. While in the whole of the Czech Republic about 30 percent of all tests performed are positive, in the capital it was less than 17 percent from last Tuesday to this Monday, according to calculations by the daily Aktuálně.cz. However, it is still a very high number. It is generally stated that in order for an epidemic to be claimed to be under control, the proportion of positive tests must be below five percent. However, Prague is gradually declining to this number.
The positive trend of the epidemic in Prague was appreciated a few days ago by the chief hygienist Jarmila Rážová, who praised the people of Prague. According to her, the declining numbers of new infections are also due to them. “One of the possible and very similar explanations is that Prague had a higher incidence of positivity than other regions. compared to other regions, the situation is significantly better, “Rážová explained.
The daily Aktuálně.cz also asked Zdeněk Jágrová, the director of the Prague Hygiene Station, to explain the current trends, but she refused to answer by providing information on coronavirus exclusively to the Ministry of Health.
However, publicly available data show that estimates of Rážová’s main hygiene are realistic and the reduced mobility of Praguers may indeed be one of the reasons. Restricting social contacts is the best prevention against coronavirus. Epidemic modeling experts say it is necessary to reduce the average number of significant contacts per person to seven per week, a number that corresponds to the spring wave epidemic. Researchers from PAQ Research regularly monitor the level of significant contacts. The latest available data from the week of 19 to 25 October show that, on average, Czechs clashed with 15 people, with the curve showing a declining trend.
The fact that people in the Czech Republic are not as “closed at home” as during the spring wave of the epidemic is evidenced by the Atlas of Mobility project of the University of Mining – Technical University in Ostrava, which collects data on how a lot of people leave their homes.
Change in non – commuting rates for the whole of the Czechia compared to the average of the first five weeks of 2020 Photo: Atlas of mobility
The technology company Google also collects similar data. They show that Praguers are staying at home about 18 percent more these days than in the pre-coronavirus period. This is more than in other regions, although the difference is only units of percentage points. On the contrary, where there is a more fundamental difference, there is employment. Minister of Health Jan Blatný has repeatedly asked employers to order their work to people from home, where possible.
The data of the Institute of Health Information and statistics show that the largest part of those infected comes from employment. In September, almost 60 percent of all infected reported work as a possible place to become infected.
This is where it is possible to find the biggest difference between the mobility of Praguers and the people of the rest of the republic. According to Google data, people in Prague move 44 percent less at work than before the epidemic, while in the whole country this figure is only 32 percent. For example, in the Karlovy Vary region the presence of people at the workplace fell by only 26 percent, in Zlín by 27 percent and in South Moravia by 33 percent.
Based on this data, it is not possible to claim which regions have a more responsible employer, because in industrially oriented areas the possibilities to send employees to work from home are significantly lower than in the capital.
Praguers Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) also praised the people of Prague for their good approach to the epidemic. “I very much appreciate the discipline of Praguers in terms of compliance with current measures. This is, after all, evident in the declining daily number of new infections. But we have not won yet and we must not relax in the fight against the pandemic,” the mayor said.
According to research by the STEM agency, which was commissioned by the Prague City Hall, people in Prague respect government measures. Two-thirds of the local population usually consider it appropriate, and 21 percent believe that the measures should have been even stricter. Unlike preventive and security measures, Praguers are aware of more critical measures in the economic field, which 42 percent of them do not consider correct.
Falling numbers are good news for hospitals as well. It can be expected that if the steady trend in Prague persists, the number of hospitalizations, which always manifests itself several days apart, could soon begin to decline. Already in Prague hospitals have fewer patients with covid-19 than they did a few days ago. Some time ago, he had to get used to the fact that the number of hospitalized people is constantly growing. Now the trend is reversing. At the end of October, there were 855 people with covid-19 in Prague hospitals, and on Tuesday their number dropped to 773.
The numbers of people in intensive care units are not falling much yet, although their growth has stopped. Among the 117 patients who require intensive care, there are also five from Zlín, Uherské Hradiště and Kroměříž, which rescuers transferred to Motol hospitals to help facilities in the currently most affected regions.
On the contrary, kindergartens in Prague prove to be a problem. In seventeen of them, hygienists discovered the outbreak of the disease. The daily Aktuálně.cz turned to the Ministry of Health with questions about how it is possible that the disease is spreading there, and if any measures are planned to prevent this from happening, but the press department did not react until the text was published.