A state of emergency due to rising COVID-19 cases has started in Czechia, while the country remains in political limbo as the appointment of the country's new prime minister has been delayed to Sunday after its president tested positive for the coronavirus.

President Milos Zeman was rushed back to hospital on Thursday night, just hours after being released from a six-week stay, with complications related to a chronic illness that his office never specified but which doctors said was a liver condition.

His earlier stay in Prague's Central Military Hospital had threatened a constitutional crisis because, when ill, Zeman had been unable to appoint a prime minister, an essential presidential task.

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The president's positive test delays the appointment of Petr Fiala, leader of the center-right alliance Together that won October's election, who is set to lead a new five-party coalition government. 

The prime ministerial appointment was planned for Friday. The new government will be the most extensive coalition yet. Two-party or three-party coalitions have previously governed the country.

The 30-day state of emergency announced by the interim and outgoing Prime Minister Andrej Babis came after a daily record on Thursday of more than 27,717 new coronavirus infections in the country of 10.7 million people. Bars and clubs will close at 10 p.m. and Prague's famous Christmas markets are banned.

Babis, a billionaire, narrowly lost the election with his populist ANO party after being accused of financial wrongdoing in the so-called Pandora Papers scandal – the documents leak exposing the alleged hidden wealth of those in power across the world. The allegations, which he denies, emerged shortly before the election and dominated media coverage in the run up to the vote.

According to health ministry data, there are nearly 6,000 coronavirus patients in the country's hospitals and around 850 in intensive care, of whom 70 percent of patients are unvaccinated. Czechia has vaccinated 58.5 percent of the total population, significantly below the EU average of 65.8 percent.

A spokesman for President Zeman said the 77-year-old president had been vaccinated against the coronavirus three times. His office said he would be released on Saturday and head to the presidential retreat at Lany, west of the capital Prague. There, he will appoint Fiala as prime minister with safety measures being maintained.