January the 28th, 2023 - An enormous number (221,000 in total) of Croatian ID cards expired back during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and given the fact that the Interior Ministry (MUP) told people not to bother worrying about it until after the end of the pandemic was declared, people just carried out with their lives. Now there's quite a monumental administrative task at hand.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, closed schools, restaurants, cafes, hair salons, bars, bans on gatherings, passes and COVID certificates. All of the above was our bizarre and unprecedented reality not so long ago. Almost three years ago, more precisely on March the 11th, 2020, the novel coronavirus entered the country and an epidemic was declared in Croatia. Is it over now? Yes and no.
"If the end of the pandemic ends up being declared, it means that the virus is still very much here, that it has entered into its endemic phase and that it will remain among us forever. Whether a decision will be made soon is very difficult to say. The information I received from Geneva is that this is the one million dollar question," said the director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Krunoslav Capak.
This is being discussed by the World Health Organisation's emergency committee for COVID-19. There were sixty known and confirmed new cases of infection across the Republic of Croatia in the last 24 hours, and 411 patients are being treated in hospital for more severe clinical pictures.
"The situation is currently stable, we have 10 to 15 hospitalised patients. The situation now is completely incomparable to the one we had at the beginning. We knew little about this new virus or the issues it would present, we didn't have a vaccine, we didn't have the knowledge about what medicines we could use, but now the clinical picture of COVID-19 is milder,'' said the head of the Dr. Fran Mihaljevic Clinic for Infectious Diseases, Ivan Puljiz.
71 percent of the Croatian adult population has now been fully vaccinated and had boosters, and there are more vaccines available.
"The government made a decision that large quantities of vaccines will now be exported to more distant countries. We unfortunately destroyed some 300,000 doses because their deadlines expired, and we were unable to donate them," explained Capak, adding that many people have come to terms with the new virus living among us like many others do and are no longer worried about it.
For now, the end of the pandemic doesn't mean the end of wearing masks in healthcare facilities, pharmacies, and care homes where clinically vulnerable individuals reside.
"In our case, meaning in the case of Croatia, we'll discuss whether this can become a mere recommendation. For now, while the weather is cold and we can get bigger numbers, we won't change anything,'' said Capak.
Due to the coronavirus epidemic, expired documents such as Croatian ID cards and the like are still valid. More than 221,000 people now have expired Croatian ID cards, almost twice as many have expired passports. 78,500 people also have expired driver's licenses, writes Danas.hr/Today.hr. Thirty days after the end of the epidemic is officially declared, requests for new documents such as Croatian ID cards must be submitted to MUP.
"Regardless of the end of the epidemic being declared or not, people can start to plan and prepare to get their new documents themselves. We all have phones, search engines... choose your police department, select the services you need and reserve your date to come and get it all done,'' said Marija Goatti, a spokeswoman for the Zagreb Police Department.
While waiting for the announcement of the end of the pandemic, 12 cases of a new strain of the novel coronavirus - Kraken - have now been confirmed in Croatia. Epidemiologists don't expect any major problems to occur owing to it.
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