Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Czech teenagers deployed to overwhelmed hospitals as Covid cases explode
It was only four months ago when Prague citizens gathered on the medieval Charles Bridge and seated around a 500-meter-long table covered with white clothes to goodbye to the new coronavirus pandemic. (Vol.2010, Jul.8) At that time, the Czech Republic was one of the first to implement tough restrictions designed to curb the coronavirus during the first wave and had reported only about 12,000 cases and 350 deaths connected to Covid-19, much fewer than any other country in Europe. But now, the Czech health system is in jeopardy. Every day, 1,000 health care workers have been infected by the coronavirus and over 15,000 were unable to work as of October 28. The worst of all, 3,000 of them were doctors. These numbers are significant for a country with a population of just 10 million. Now, they are so shorthanded that teenage nursing and healthcare students are called in to fill the shortage of hospital personnel. The military also set up a field hospital and staffed it with military doctors and nurses. But that’s still not enough to cover the shortage of doctors.
When Czech was asked to send doctors to help Italy in spring, it declined. So, it is awkward to ask others to send doctors to help their crisis. The hard lesson is learned with the price of lives and by the chaos.
Enjoy reading the article and learn what could go wrong so badly once restrictions and cautions are loosened.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/30/europe/czech-second-wave-hospital-crisis-teens-intl/index.html
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