Prime Minister Andrej Babis says a tough country cannot wait for EU approval for Russia’s Sputink V image.
The Czech Republic has requested a batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine while awaiting a delay in pictures obtained by the EU, the president said Sunday, adding that Prague will also consider seeking Chinese injection.
EU members have been among the worst hit by the COVID pandemic in recent weeks, with high numbers of diseases and deaths, as the situation has been exacerbated by the new variants of the virus.
Distribution of the vaccine has been slower than expected and only 650,000 jobs have been provided since December in the country of 10.7 million people, which Czech politicians blame on slow supply by the EU.
“After speaking to the prime minister, I have sent a letter to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, requesting a supply of the Sputnik vaccine,” President Milos Zeman told TV Prima.
“Information from the Russian embassy suggests it could arrive in the next few days,” he said.
Zeman said he would also welcome the Sinopharm vaccine in China in the country that has confirmed more than 1.2 million Covid-19 cases and more than 20,000 deaths, arguing that “vaccines have no ideology”.
Czechs have shown a lack of confidence in the vaccines on social networks, driven by their knowledge of low-quality Soviet goods delivered to their country during the four decades of Communism in 1948–89.
Neither Sputnik V nor Sinopharm have been approved by the EU EMA regulator, unlike the Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccines currently in use in the Czech Republic.
But Zeman and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said they would not wait for the EMA to give the green light.
“We can’t wait for EMA, when Russia has not applied (for approval),” Babis told CNN Prima News. He said the agreement with the Czech drug authority, SUKL, would be enough.
“SUKL must inspect the documents and if they approve it, the Ministry of Health must issue an exemption … and then, whoever is interested, they can enter,” he said. e.
Babis and Zeman have already received both kicks of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
Separately, Babis said the government will debate on Monday whether to introduce mandatory COVID-19 testing at the country’s largest companies. This news came after the government imposed stricter restrictions in an effort to prevent the spread of the coronation.
The seven-day average of new daily infections in the Czech Republic reached 1,383 per million people on Saturday, the highest disease rate in the world, according to data from Our World in Data.
Babis said on Sunday that its minority government will debate whether to ask companies with at least 250 employees to test their employees for COVID-19 or whether they will be fined up to 500,000 crowned them ($ 23,077.63), to take effect from 5 March.
During the first wave of COVID-19 in the Czech Republic last spring, some companies closed for some time, which contributed to the economic downturn in the second quarter.
But the latest wave has led to a higher number of people in poor condition as a result of COVID-19 and some hospitals have been able to move patients hundreds of miles due to lack of capacity.
About one in 10 Czechs have been infected with the coronavirus in the past year, and the death toll has risen to 20,339 from about 600 five months ago.