Minister of Health Jan Blatný replaced

Minister of Health Jan Blatný, was officially dismissed on Wednesday and replaced by Petr Arenberger, the current director of the Vinohrady University Hospital. Blatný was the third person to hold the post during the coronavirus pandemic.

Blatný was known to have had a strained relationship with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (ANO), who among other things, criticized him for the overly strict conditions for administering experimental drugs to treat Covid-19. At a press conference on Wednesday Blatný (independent) said he had a “clear conscience” that he had done the job well, calling his sacking “a political decision”.

When appointing Arenberger as the new health minister today, President Miloš Zeman blamed Blatný for the high coronavirus death rate, saying he should not have blocked deliveries of vaccines from Russia and China.