The Government's Response to the Pandemic: An Overview of Measures Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Czech Republic in 2020 and 2021
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has been reported in the demographic literature primarily with concern to the increase in mortality rates. Most countries, including the Czechia, have sought to prevent an increase in mortality rates through the introduction of measures to prevent (or at least mitigate) the spread of the disease across their populations.
This report presents an overview of measures introduced by the Czech government during 2020 and 2021. It addresses specifically those measures that acted to restrict the free movement of persons, the imposition of respiratory protection precautions, the restriction of the operation of retail outlets, services and schools and measures that applied to employees and employers.
It presents, inter alia, a chronology of the availability of vaccines and defines particular periods of the pandemic based on the severity of the measures imposed. Briefly, it defines four levels of restrictions, the highest of which restricted the operation of companies via the imposition of government measures in the period 27 February to 11 April 2021.
The years 2020 and 2021 are divided into a total of 13 periods that were characterised by various degrees of restriction. These periods are illustrated in the conclusion of the report in the context of the development of pandemic indicators (the numbers of tested, vaccinated, infected, hospitalised and deceased persons).
Government measures, together with changes in the intensity of the mortality rate, need to be taken into account in the study of other demographic processes since the government-imposed restrictions may well have exerted a direct effect on the intensity of marriages, divorces and migration, and thus indirectly on fertility levels.