PELHRIMOV – A year after the Czech Republic recorded its first death from the coronavirus, the central European nation paused to remember all the citizens who lost their lives in the pandemic.
By the end of the day, the number had surpassed 25,000. Bells tolled across the country at noon last Monday to mark the anniversary of when the pandemic's first Czech casualty, a 95-year-old man, died in a Prague hospital.
On March 22, 2020 and for some days to come, the Czech Republic reported daily COVID-19 deaths in the single digits. Few imagined then that the nation of of 10.7 million eventually would have one of the world's highest per capita death tolls.