Czech police and military forces have set up 500 checkpoints across the country to enforce new strict limits on free movement
Some 30,000 officers took part in an unprecedented operation to enforce a new strict restriction banning people from traveling to other counties unless they go to work or have to care for relatives.
It is part of a series of measures that were implemented on Monday as the Central European nation tries to curb the spread of a highly contagious virus variant found for the first time in Britain.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis said the aim of the measure was to prevent hospitals in the country from collapsing under the stress of COVID-19 patient care.
Amid an increase in infections by the UK variant, of the 7,049 COVID-19 patients in Czech hospitals on Sunday, 1,507 needed intensive care. Both numbers are close to the records set earlier last week.
Since the Czech Republic registered the first three people infected with coronavirus on March 1 last year, the nation of 10.7 million has registered more than 1.24 million confirmed cases with 20,469 deaths.
The seven-day average of new daily cases has gone from 70.75 new cases per 100,000 people on Feb. 14 to 109.82 per 100,000 people on Sunday, the worst per capita rate in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.
From Monday, people in the Czech Republic who go out to exercise should not leave their municipality. Nursery schools and schools for children with disabilities were also closed, while only commodity shops remain open.
Experts, however, say the measures do not go far enough to stop the virus.
“I consider the most important measures that have not been implemented,” biochemist Jan Trnka told Czech public radio. “That’s limiting contacts to work, especially to industry.”
The government also approved a plan to require massive mandatory testing of employees. It will start in companies with more than 250 workers on Wednesday, followed by those with at least 50 workers on Friday.
Industry and Trade Minister Karel Havlicek said around 10,000 companies and firms are expected to test 2.1 million workers in the next two weeks.
Havlicek has previously rejected calls to close at least some factories and factories as “unrealistic.”
Meanwhile, the country is accelerating its vaccination program with general practitioners joining the inoculation centers. More than 650,000 doses of vaccine have been administered. Babis said 1 million vaccines were expected to arrive through an EU program in March and another 2.6 million in April.
As a sign of solidarity, three states in neighboring Germany have sent the Czech Republic 15,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to try to control the contagion at the border.
Babis and pro-Russian President Milos Zeman also said they would use the Russian Sputnik V vaccine even if it is not approved by the European Medicines Agency.
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