Final Word from Monday, December 20, 2021
Chief Justice Pavel Rychetský of the Constitutional Court told Czech Radio last week that every government likes it when it is able to use a state of emergency to pass measures that don't relate directly to the emergency. The pandemic allows other laws to be passed rapidly, he said. Ex-Health Min. Adam Vojtěch told MFD that covid has helped accelerate the digitization of healthcare and allowed for the creation of a new national service for monitoring hospital capacity. The new cabinet of Petr Fiala had the chance to extend the state of emergency but decided to let it expire on Dec. 25, thereby forfeiting for now its own chance to sneak through new legislation. Health Min. Vlastimil Válek told CNN Prima News (at 8 min.) yesterday that there is a big unknown in terms of vaccination legislation, because it is the World Health Organization that imposes a vaccine mandate on children, and it is absolutely impossible to predict how it will react to the way the virus has mutated twice in a totally unexpected way, and worse each time. This is the closest a Czech health minister has come to explaining who is really in control here. [ Czech Republic mandatory ]
Glossary of difficult words
to forfeit - to lose or give up (something) as a necessary consequence of something else;
to sneak - to do or obtain (something) in a secretive, stealthy or furtive way;
vaccine mandate - mandatory vaccination.