Romani singer sends message about COVID-19 from a Czech hospital: You do not want to catch this

At a time when many Romani people in the Czech Republic are continuing to share disinformation online about COVID-19, the popular singer Fery Bartoš, who has been hospitalized and is on artificial respiration after contracting COVID-19, is now warning people not to catch the virus. Roman Cina Červeňák, a friend of Bartoš, used social media to inform people the singer is in the hospital by forwarding his message.

"Take care of yourselves, everybody, I also believed I couldn't catch this and that if I did, it would be like the flu, but the reality was different," Bartoš writes. "It's not easy when machines have to keep you alive, breathing for you, and doctors are telling you that the state of your health is critical."

"I don't want to scare anybody, but this is reality, I've lived through it and there are actually many people here laid low with this," the singer writes. "I wish you all good health..."    

Romani community member Petra Gelbart also described the course of her experience with COVID-19 earlier this year. "Unequivocally, the worst part for me was the two weeks during which I could neither inhale nor exhale fully, and the entire time my heart pounded as if I were running a race from morning to evening," she said in an interview for covid19vUK.org.

"At night, I mostly managed to fall asleep only with the aid of sleeping pills," Gelbart said. "This is, unfortunately, the normal state, in the aggregate, when coronavirus reaches the lungs - it's a disgusting pneumonia."    

The one-day growth in confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Czech Republic exceeded 10 000 on Friday for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, with 11 105 infected people confirmed by the laboratory handling testing, while yesterday, as of 18:00, another 4 308 cases were confirmed and another 21 deaths were added to the official statistics, according to which 1 338 people have died of COVID-19 this year in the Czech Republic. There are currently 94 188 infected persons in the country. 

Most people experience a mild course of the disease, but the number of people being hospitalized for it is growing. According to the most recent data posted to the Czech Health Ministry website, there are 3 415 patients in hospital with COVID-19, 596 of whom are in serious condition. 

Health Minister Roman Prymula (for ANO) said COVID-19 infection numbers are predicted to rise for another 10 days to two weeks. Experts say 3 to 4 % are being hospitalized, of whom about 20 % are in serious condition. 

The average time between a diagnosis of COVID-19 and the display of serious symptoms that require hospitalization is between one week and 10 days. The coordinator of the country's intensive care, Vladimír Černý, declared on Friday that the coming weeks will be exceptionally hard for the Czech health care system and very demanding for health care personnel above all, but there is no danger the system will collapse. 

According to Prymula, the capacities in Czech hospitals have been doubled. Since last Wednesday, stricter measures to combat the pandemic have been in force throughout the entire Czech Republic because of these unfavorable developments. 

All schools, from primary schools to universities, have transitioned to distance instruction, with the exception of classrooms serving children with special needs. Bars, clubs and restaurants are closed and cultural and sports events are banned. 

People are allowed to assemble in groups of six at the most. Prymula said Friday that more measures will not be announced in the near future.