Government declares new state of emergency

The Czech government has declared a new state of emergency for a period of 30 days, in order to deal with the worsening epidemiological situation in the country. The state of emergency is to last until March 28. The lower house on Friday rejected a proposal to extend the ongoing state of emergency due to the fact that it had been called at the request of regional governors and was thereby legally questionable.

The lower house approved a law on pandemics on Friday, which will give the Health Ministry exceptional powers, but the government says it is not sufficient to deal with the exceptionally grave coronavirus crisis.