The Czech president announced on Sunday January 10 that he had asked Israel to share its know-how in the field of vaccination against the coronavirus, his country currently having one of the highest rates of contamination in the world.
Read also: Israel, world champion in vaccination against Covid
His call was made as thousands of people demonstrated in central Prague to protest the ongoing vaccination campaign and strict government restrictions aimed at stemming Covid-19 contamination.
In an interview with the Blesk newspaper, President Milos Zeman Zeman said he recently asked his Israeli counterpart Reuben Rivlin to "
help him organize the vaccination campaign, because Israel is absolutely perfect for that
".
Israel has already vaccinated nearly a million and a half people, a rate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims is the fastest in the world, with the prospect that all Israelis over the age of 16 will be able to receive the vaccine by March.
"
I hope that Israeli experts will come here and share their experience with us,
" added Zeman, who has close ties with Israel.
The Czech Republic began vaccination against Covid just after Christmas, with billionaire populist Prime Minister Andrej Babis as the first vaccine.
On Sunday, some 3,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Prague shouting “
we are not sheep!
","
No to vaccination!
"And"
let's open up the Czech Republic!
", A rally where surgical masks were rare and where social distancing rules were largely ignored, AFP found.
Protesters say government restrictions have failed to stem the contamination and are devastating the economy.
"
The chaotic measures taken by this government do not and will never work,
" accused Jiri Janecek, the owner of a brewery southwest of Prague, addressing the crowd.
Restaurants, bars, sports halls, cinemas, theaters and most schools have been closed at regular intervals since March in this leading EU member state of nearly 10.7 million people global statistics on the number of new cases compared to that of inhabitants.
Czech health authorities have so far registered more than 830,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 of which more than 13,000 have been fatal, with a daily increase having exceeded the record of 17,000 cases twice this week.
