News: Saturday, July 11th, 2020

Health Ministry moves Serbia and Montenegro on high-risk coronavirus list

The Ministry of Health placed Serbia and Montenegro on its list of countries with a high coronavirus risk on Friday. Czechs traveling to one of these two states will either have to take a COVID-19 test upon returning to their home country, or quarantine themselves for a period of two weeks.

Until Friday, Serbia and Montenegro were both classified as low-risk countries by the ministry. However, a worsening of the local epidemiological situation over the past week led Czech officials to change the travel conditions.

Kutná Hora outbreak leads to local reintroduction of COVID-19 countermeasures

Reacting to a local outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the Kutná Hora district, hygienists have reintroduced compulsory facemask wearing in internal spaces, limits on public gatherings and a ban on hospital and care home visits.

The outbreak was registered in the village of Církvice near Kutná Hora. With cases begining to appear outside of this epicentre, hygienists decided to enact countermeasures across the district.

Fears of an outbreak have also appeared in the Eastern Bohemian Jihlava district after three nurses at a care home tested positive for COVID-19 and a further seven cases were also discovered. Dozens of the care home clients are now set to undergo testing and Jihlava authorities are considering reintroducing facemask wearing in public transport.

Heavy storms ravaged Czechia on Friday night

Storms and strong winds caused damage in several places around the country during the night from Friday to Saturday. Firefighters had to be sent into action more than 200 times to remove blocked roads and pump out overflowing water.

The heaviest hit regions were North East Bohemia, the Vysočina region and Southern Moravia.

Meteorologists expect the weather to quieten down over the weekend.

Czech property price growth sixth highest in EU

Year-on-year growth in Czech property prices in the first quarter of 2020 rose to 9.5 percent compared to 8.9 percent in the previous quarter, Eurostat data released this week shows. The Czech Republic thus has the sixth fastest rate of property price growth in the European Union.

Luxemburg, Slovakia, Estonia, Poland and Portugal all ranked ahead of Czechia in terms of price growth and exceeded 10 percent growth in the first quarter.

Czech Fund Analyst Lukáš Kovanda told news site Aktuálně.cz that the reason behind the growth was limited supply caused by the slow pace of housing construction.

Czech professor’s image of comet named photo of the day by NASA

America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) published an image of the Neowise comet as its photo of the day on Saturday. The picture was taken by Czech photographer and mathematician Miloslav Druckmüller who is a professor at the Brno University of Technology.

Neowise, which is now sweeping through northern skies, is one of the brightest comets to be spotted in recent years and could be seen without telescopic instruments over the past few nights.

Initiated in 1995, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is a prestigious award for space photographers.

Weather

Temperatures are set to rise to around 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday. While it will be cloudy across the country, no rain is expected except in the area of Krkonoše.