The Czech Republic expressed regret about this finding and replaced the medical supplies in question with identical ones from its stocks. They arrived in Italy on Tuesday 24 March 2020. The Czech Republic sent also an evacuation bus to Italy on Monday, 23 March 2020 that returned some four dozen Italian citizens to their country.

Czech authorities sent 110,000 face masks to Italy as compensation for a contingent seized from traffickers that turned out to be part of a donation from China to Italy.

A further delivery of medical equipment from the Czech Republic, including 10,000 protective medical suits and samples of a special 3D printed respirator model which are at the same level of protection as highly demanded FFP3 face masks (developed by the Czech Technical University) is set to reach the Italian city of Milan by a truck on Monday (30 March 2020).

Coronavirus response: Czech medical aid arrives in Spain, heads to Italy

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech republic takes an active part in arranging repatriation flights for Czech citizens from certain destinations from where travellers are no longer able to return using commercial connections. At this occassion the opportunity of return to Europe is offered also to citizens of other EU member states. For example, thanks to a flight set up under the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, close to 300 European Union citizens managed to fly from Hanoi to Prague on the 25^th of March. The EU delegation in Hanoi helped the authorities of the Czech Republic in coordinating the humanitarian charter flight that allowed the repatriation of 204 Czech citizens and 82 citizens of 11 other EU member states (Germany, Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, Netherlands, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Greece). This was the first evacuation flight in a coronavirus pandemic period, coordinated under the EU mechanisms.

Summary tables of repatriation flights

Good stories on consular support for EU citizens stranded abroad