Hostage to Germany
Under the state of emergency, the Czech government has taken extreme measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus. If people respect the ban on the free movement of persons, the sequence of events can be estimated fairly accurately based on what has happened in other countries. Infections will continue to rise before levelling off and then declining. A minimum number of deaths is likely, and it will be possible to ease the restrictions as the spread abates. The single biggest risk factor for Czechs is now Germany. It's about nine days behind Italy and is still extremely slow to react. Dep. Health Min. Roman Prymula told Právo that even if the CR completely eradicated the disease but other countries did not, it would still have to keep the borders closed. Czechs are hostage to Germany and should now start paying more attention to what Angela Merkel, Jens Spahn, Horst Seehofer and Ursula von der Leyen say and do than to what is happening in their own country.
Glossary of difficult words
to curb - to restrain or keep in check;
sequence - a particular order in which related things follow each other;
to ease - to make (something unpleasant or intense) less serious or severe;
to abate - (of something unpleasant or severe) to become less intense or widespread;
to eradicate - to put an end to; to destroy completely;
Jens Spahn - German health minister;
Horst Seehofer - German interior minister;
Ursula von der Leyen - president of the European Commission.