ZAGREB, 15 Aug, 2021 - President Zoran Milanović on Saturday attended a meeting of the Jelsa Municipal Council on Hvar island on the occasion of the municipality's day, as did Health Minister Vili Beroš as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković's envoy.
Beroš said at the meeting that the tourism results were brilliant owing to the national COVID crisis management team's thinking as well as everyone who complied with the restrictions.
He called for caution "because we don't know what the situation will be like in the autumn," adding that vaccination was the only way out of the crisis.
He said 49.7% of the adult population was vaccinated and that those who were not "represent a reservoir of a possible continuation of new coronavirus variants."
"We are still in the orange (COVID zone), but our position on the ECDC list is unstable. The rising numbers warn that the virus is among us and this position on the list could deteriorate. That won't end the tourist season, but if the epidemic flares up, it could disrupt health plans and plans for the post-season."
Beroš went on to say that big reforms were expected in the health sector, that the system was burdened with many problems, and that the COVID crisis had highlighted all that was good in the system as well as many negative things.
Commenting on Beroš's speech, Milanović said that "we have been living in abnormal circumstances for a year already, on the brink of encroaching upon human freedoms, which requires firm, clear justifications understandable to everyone."
"For now we are holding on and what I see as the most endangered is people's mental health. This will pass. I support the minister and I support any reasonable and persistent policy whose goal is good. So, get vaccinated and most of the problems will be solved," he said.
The president said prejudices were not smart, either about science or something based on proof, research and the trial and error method in which, he added, success was guaranteed and errors were minor or reduced to the statistical minimum.
"What has been developed in the past year and a half is one of the greatest triumphs in the history of human knowledge, human organisation and synergy. It's an example of synergy, intelligence and money in a short time. Let's get vaccinated!"
Speaking on the occasion of Jelsa Municipality Day, the president said the people of Jelsa were developing their municipality well and in harmony.
He added that every society and politics must start from people's right and possibility to organise into everything that was not subversive or destructive.
Milanović said "we owe loyalty to the Croatian state, which is our national, civic state. It has its territory, its borders, open, human... it has its customs, its history, it also has its prejudices."
He supported everyone who fought for Croatia having such a status in Europe because, he said, the EU was not what had been conceived many years ago, but it was good. "In that world, we are fighting for our interest."
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