PRAGUE: Coronavirus infections in the Czech Republic have set a new one-day record for the second straight day.
Health Ministry figures show the day-to-day increase reached 9,721 on Thursday, 177 more than the previous record set a day earlier.
The nation of more than 10 million has had a total of 149,010 cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Almost 50,000 of them were registered last week. It has also seen 1,230 deaths.
Hospitals across the country have been postponing nonvital planned operations to focus on the growing number of COVID-19 patients. The government said their full capacity could be reached around the end of October.
The Czech military will start build a field hospital at Prague’s exhibition center over the weekend for 500 patients. A similar plan is ready for the second largest city of Brno, while the government is negotiating with neighboring Germany and some other countries for Czechs to be treated there if the local health system is overwhelmed.