Health Insurance chief: Hospitals could return to normal by end of June

Care in hospitals could return to normal by the end of June, the director of the country’s largest health insurance company, VZP, Miloslav Ludvík said on Czech Television on Sunday. Hospitals in the country were asked to postpone their planned operations by the Ministry of Health to focus on the coronavirus pandemic, with large sections of staff allocated to treat patients affected by COVID-19.

The VZP director went on to say that the insurance company has calculated its losses associated with the coronavirus pandemic to lie at around CZK 31 billion. The government’s decision to raise the level of insurance payments, along with the company’s own reserves will help mitigate the losses.

The head of Prague’s Motol hospital, Zdeněk Kabátek, said that the spread rate of COVID-19 is the same as with other coronaviruses registered over the past 7 years and is considerably lower than, for example, when it comes to measles. He went on to say that he “heavily criticised” the World Health Organisation for what he said was a lacking methodological role which would educate people about the virus and stop people from being “scared”.