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Leading Czech banks have received nearly 200,000 requests to postpone loan repayments from clients affected by anti-coronavirus measures, according to a ČTK survey. Most were consumer loans or mortgages.

Česká spořitelna has received 45,000 such requests – about 55 percent for consumer loans, 35 percent for mortgages and 10 percent for corporate loans. The ČSOB Group had registered over 37,000 requests for deferred repayments, also mainly consumer loans and mortgages.

Moneta Money Bank and its subsidiaries Wüstenrot announced on Tuesday they had received over 50,000 requests for postponement of installments worth over CZK 20 billion.

The Czech government on Wednesday presented its plan to gradually lift anti-coronavirus restrictions on some businesses and open educational facilities in five stages, from April 20 to June 8.

In the first phase, farmers’ markets, hardware stores and similar small businesses will be among the first allowed to reopen, with other types to follow suit from week to week.

The last phase concerns stores in shopping malls, as well as restaurants, cafés, wine bars, hotels and other accommodation establishments, theatres and castles.

Regarding schools, initially students in the final year of university should be able to access libraries in small groups and consult their teachers at their faculties.

By mid-May, secondary school students nearing graduation should be able to meet teachers to prepare for exams. Entrance exams to secondary schools and universities, and baccalaureate exams, should take place in early June.

As for primary schools, the number of students could be limited to 15 per class (with a return from May 25 only). For now, opening nursery schools has been left to the discretion of local authorities.

One of five rare eastern black rhinos that the Dvůr Králové Zoo sent to Rwanda last summer has died. The rhino, a male named Manny born in 2011, may have had a digestive tract disorder, said the zoo’s head of international projects.

The five rhinos were relocated to in Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda as part of an international effort to restore the critically endangered subspecies. The local population was wiped out during a civil war in the 1990s.

Dvůr Králové Zoo is also spearheading an international effort to save the Northern White Rhino, which is on the brink of extinction.

The number of coronavirus cases in the Czech Republic will likely rise to 10,000 by the end of April, according to a cumulative model developed by the Institute of Health Information and Statistics (ÚZIS).

As of Wednesday morning, the number of confirmed cases stood at 6,151, according to the Ministry of Health. The ÚZIS projection, which is revised regularly, takes into account estimates of previously undiscovered cases.

To date, 163 deaths from Covid-19 have been reported, while 676 people have recovered from the disease.