PRAGUE — The Czech Republic is launching a regular testing program in all its nursing and pensioner homes amid a surge in coronavirus infections among the elderly.

The program that involves testing up to 100,000 residents and over 80,000 staff members will used rapid antigen tests. It starts on Wednesday and the tests will be repeated every week.

The measure comes as the number of people aged 65 and older has been higher than 20% of all tested positive.

The Czech Republic had 362,985 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic with almost 170,000 registered in last two weeks. Nearly one-third of the country’s 3,913 deaths have taken place in last seven days.

The country was facing a record surge in new cases since late August. But in a positive sign, the day-to-day increase has slightly fallen since hitting a record of 15,664 a week ago. It reached 12,088 on Tuesday.