PRAGUE – A Czech cafe has turned its bar area into a model electric car track for bartenders and staff to pass the time while the country’s pubs and restaurants are shuttered to the public to curb a rising tide of coronavirus infections.

Staff at Mlynska cafe – popular with Prague’s artist community – said they decided to set up the track when one of them discovered they had an old set stored away at home.

While restaurants and pubs are closed for dining and drinking inside, staff remain on standby for take away orders.

“It was a sudden idea,” said bar manager Jan Sramek. “We said if we can’t use the space as we used to … we’d have the kind of fun here we can’t have when we have guests.”

The central European country – which has the continent’s fastest per capita rise in COVID-19 infections and deaths from the disease – earlier this week closed restaurants, bars and clubs and shifted schools to distance learning.