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Wednesday’s record daily increase in Covid-19 numbers ( at over 9,500) has heightened the urgency of appeals for people to take the coronavirus threat seriously. A group of scientists have published an appeal for people to minimize their contacts with others, while government officials have once again stressed that the exponential growth in Covid infections could soon  send the death toll soaring.

Jan Šibík is one of the Czech Republic's top photojournalists. He has undertaken assignments in hotspots around the world, including Rwanda, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iran as well as capturing the tumultuous events of the Velvet Revolution in his own homeland. In a recent interview for Czech Radio, the photographer spoke about the demise of photojournalism, what he thinks about mobile phone pics and his plans to produce a book of photographs about the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

Despite being only 35, Michal Šimíček heads the Blood Cancer Research Group in Ostrava, a team doing very exciting work in the field of cell therapy. This ground-breaking treatment involves using live immune system cells to target certain kinds of tumors and Šimíček’s aim is to create universal cells that could be taken from any donor, so making the treatment way more affordable than it is now.

Nearly 5,000 health care staff in the Czech Republic are currently infected with COVID-19 and the number is doubling every ten days. According to the head of the Czech Medical Chamber Milan Kubek, this could break the state’s health care system within a month if the trend is not reversed.

Translated into more than 30 languages, Too Loud a Solitude is perhaps the most famous of Bohumil Hrabal’s novels. It revolves around a single character, Haňťa , who works in a trash compactor facility, but maintains a deep love for the books that he is destroying. The book was written during a particularly hard time in the author’s life and is often seen as one of his greatest, but also most biographical works.

The Czech National Gallery is set to get a new director. For the first time in its history, the highly important institution will be led by a foreigner: Polish curator Alicja Knast. She has been appointed for a six-year-term and will officially take over in January.

Amidst a sharp and steady uptick in Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš on Monday evening announced tightened measures, including the closing of schools, as of Wednesday. For many weeks, the Czech Republic has recorded the highest per capita infection rate in the European Union. But Mr Babiš insisted he and his government had made “no major mistakes” in responding to the pandemic.

Umělecká Zahrada or the Arts Garden in Prague’s district of Nusle is located at the site of a former sculpting studio established in the 1920s by Karel Novák. Over the thirty years of its existence, some of the country’s most famous statues were created here, including the memorial to Jan Hus on the Old Town Square by Ladislav Šaloun or the statue to the pagan god Radegast in Beskydy by Albín Polášek.

The Czech Foreign Ministry has announced the recipients of its annual Gratias Agit awards, handed out to Czech expats and foreigners for promoting the good name of the Czech Republic internationally. This year’s recipients include US folk singer Joan Baez, Jara Dušátko, a Czech lecturer at Stanford University, and the Polish publisher and the head of Czechoslovak-Polish Solidarity Julian Kazimierz Golak.

Rosehip jam biscuits, crêpe cakes, and “Jewish doughnuts” – these were among the favourite desserts of the world-famous Czech composer Leoš Janáček. Thanks to a cookbook – and detailed notes – kept by the family housekeeper, visitors to the ongoing Janáček Festival in Brno have a chance to try these old-fashioned delicacies for themselves.