The Czech health minister was under fire Friday after a tabloid photographer caught him leaving a restaurant that should have been closed under his own anti-virus restrictions.
Roman Prymula, an epidemiologist who has been in office since September, also failed to wear a face mask when he got in his car with a driver, the Blesk daily reported.
“What happened today is an absolute disaster and an absolute shock for me,” Prime Minister Andrej Babis told reporters, vowing to sack Prymula unless he resigns himself.
“We can’t preach water and drink wine,” added the visibly shaken populist billionaire.
But Prymula refused to step down, insisting the meeting had taken place in premises adjacent to the restaurant and that he only breached the mask duty for a split second.
“I haven’t violated anything, and I’m not going to resign,” he told reporters.
Prymula himself called on Czechs to be responsible and help him beat the virus in an emotional speech last week.
Prymula’s restaurant debacle also drew criticism from social media users, the opposition and others in the governing coalition, as the Czech Republic records the worst new Covid-19 figures across Europe.
“The rules must be valid for everyone, without exception,” Interior Minister Jan Hamacek, the head of the government’s crisis committee, said in a statement quoted by the CTK news agency.
Hamacek, who has Covid-19, is chairman of the left-wing Social Democratic Party. It forms the government with the Babis-led populist ANO movement that had nominated Prymula.
The EU member of 10.7 million people has registered more than 223,000 cases and 1,845 deaths since the March outbreak.
It now leads the EU in terms of new deaths and cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
On Wednesday, Prymula announced a partial lockdown until November 3, closing most shops and services and curbing freedom of movement.
The government had earlier made face masks mandatory in most places and closed restaurants and bars as well as most other public facilities.
Last Sunday, thousands of protesters including radical football fans upset with the restrictions demanded Prymula’s resignation at a rally in Prague.
Prymula is not the only government member to have drawn criticism during the coronavirus crisis.
Babis himself vacationed in Crete over the summer after urging Czechs to stay home, while Finance Minister Alena Schillerova raised eyebrows with her perfect hairstyles when all salons were closed during the first virus wave.
Agence France-Presse
Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)
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