Czechia reports record number of daily COVID-19 cases

By Mehmet Yilmaz and Askin Kiyagan

PRAGUE (AA) - Czechia on Thursday reported a record number of new coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic with 17,668 in the past 24 hours.

Some 84 people lost their lives in the past day, bringing the death toll to 12,621.

The total number of COVID-19 infections in the country with a population of 10 million reached 794,740.

After the European Medicine Agency approved the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, Health Minister Jan Blanty said 20,000 doses will arrive in the country in this month.

The country ordered a total of 1.9 million doses from Moderna, he added.

- Poland

In the last 24 hours, Poland reported 12,054 new cases and 186 fatalities due to the disease.

The death toll in the country reached 30,241 while more than 1.35 million people contracted the virus since the pandemic began.

Some 29,000 doses of Moderna vaccine is expected to arrive in the country next week, while a total of 840,000 doses of the vaccine is estimated to arrive by the end of March.

Poland has so far vaccinated 140,000 people with the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.

* Writing by Busra Nur Bilgic Cakmak in Ankara.