ZAGREB, 11 Feb 2022 - In the last 24 hours 7,578 coronavirus cases, out of 11,976 tests, and 44 related deaths have been registered in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Friday.

There are 43,520 active cases, including 2,133 hospitalized patients, of whom 171 are hooked up to ventilators, while 22,155 persons are self-isolating.

To date, 56.7% of the total population, or 67.46% of adults have been vaccinated, with 65.15% of adults fully.

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ZAGREB, 10 Feb 2022 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Thursday new coronavirus cases were on a downward curve but that due to the low vaccination rate, easing protocols and changing the role of COVID certificates was not under consideration yet.

We must be aware of the fact that there is still a large number of unvaccinated citizens who can become seriously ill, which is why Croatia cannot follow the examples of Denmark, Sweden or Great Britain, where sufficient vaccination rates allow for easing the restrictions, he said at a cabinet session.

Sharpest fall in new infections in the fifth wave

Beroš said that today Croatia had nearly 32% fewer daily new cases week on week and that this was the sharpest fall in the fifth wave of the epidemic.

In the last 24 hours, 45.81% of PCR tests and 10.69% of rapid antigen tests have come back positive.

The highest numbers of new cases have been recorded in Bjelovar-Bilogora, Šibenik-Knin and Zadar counties.

There are 57 fewer hospitalised COVID patients than yesterday and 13 fewer on ventilators.

There has been a mild fall in hospitalisations in the past few days, including fewer patients in intensive care units and on ventilators, the minister said.

To date 2,215,898 persons have been vaccinated, including 829,638 with a booster shot or 21.33% of the population.

COVID certificates continue to reduce the risk of infection spreading in hospitals, care homes and some work environments, Beroš said.

Despite sufficient vaccines and vaccination points, interest in vaccination is increasingly low, although Croatian Institute of Public Health data show that those who received a booster shot and later have been infected accounted for a mere 0.4% of  the total population.

Beroš said the ministry continued to monitor the provision of all emergency medical services and that special protocols existed for oncology patients to schedule checkups.

He said the expected rise in the number of oncology patients would not bypass Croatia and that the necessary steps were being taken to deal with the problem.

"The availability of health services for vulnerable groups is our priority. Priority waiting lists are being adjusted to additionally expand the possibility of urgent diagnostics for oncology patients," he added.

Coexisting with a virus which could stay long in the community

The head of the national COVID-19 crisis management team, Interior Minister Davor Božinović, said one could say that infection with the Omicron variant, which caused a surge in new cases and threatened to overload the health system, was decreasing.

"If such trends continue, while specially following the situation in the health system, the crisis management team will closely analyse a possible pace of easing the restrictions and creating the prerequisites for coexisting with a virus which could stay long in the community."

It will be very important to work on the education of citizens and define recommendations for the effective protection of every individual, with emphasis on greater caution for at-risk groups, Božinović added.

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ZAGREB, 9 Feb 2022 - In the last 24 hours 11,299 coronavirus cases have been registered in Croatia, nearly 4,000 fewer than last Wednesday, as well as 37 related deaths, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Wednesday.

In the last 24 hours 16,904 persons have been tested for the virus.

There are 47,530 active cases, including 2,188 hospitalised patients, of whom 186 are hooked on to ventilators, while 20,788 persons are self-isolating.

To date 56.67% of the total population has been vaccinated, or 67.42% of adults, of whom 65.08% are fully vaccinated.

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February 9, 2022 - The vaccination campaign across the country continues during omicron, as Prime Minister Andrej Plenković received booster dose today. Croatia is currently leading in terms of mortality per million inhabitants, and at the same time, is at the bottom of the EU in terms of vaccination.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković received booster dose of the vaccine, reports Telegram. With the publication of a photo of the moment when he received the dose, Plenković again called on the citizens to respond to the vaccination, especially in the middle of the wave of the omicron variant of the coronavirus.

“In addition to my previous recovery from COVID-19 and two doses of vaccine, I also received a booster dose today, in consultation with doctors. The additional dose is particularly important during omicron circumstances. Get vaccinated and use a booster to protect against more severe forms of COVID'', Plenković announced on Twitter. The Prime Minister received the second dose five months ago, on September 10, 2021.

Plenković calls for vaccination in the midst of the collapse of the vaccination campaign. It was announced today that the CNIPH is developing a new strategy because sufficient quantities of vaccines, mobile teams, and counseling centers have not yielded the desired results. Yesterday, only 613 people were vaccinated with the first dose in Croatia.

Croatia is currently leading in terms of mortality per million inhabitants, and at the same time, is at the bottom of the EU in terms of vaccination. The number of deaths in Croatia during the pandemic is 14,244, and in the first week of February alone, 367 people died. In January, 267 people died in the same period, which means that in the first seven days of this month, as many as 100 people died more than in the same period last month - and this can be attributed to poor vaccination.

In Croatia, only 56.5 percent of citizens were vaccinated with the first dose which, when it comes to COVID, is too little to reduce mortality. 54.3 percent of citizens were vaccinated with two doses, and 19.6 percent with the booster. Citizens' interest in vaccination is declining from month to month - yesterday only 613 people were vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine, and the day before, on Sunday, just 11 of them.

For more, check out our politics section.

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7 February 2022 - In the last 24 hours 1,942 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Croatia, and 57 persons have died, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Monday.

Last Monday there were 2,561 new cases. In the last 24 hours, 3,317 persons have been tested.

Currently there are 44,578 active cases, 21,314 persons are self-isolating, and 2,191 COVID patients are hospitalised, including 178 on ventilators.

Croatia has registered 985,050 coronavirus cases and 14,194 deaths to date. Also, 56.64% of the population has been vaccinated, that is, 67.39% of adults, of whom 65% fully.

ZAGREB, 6 Feb 2022 - Croatia has recorded 6,001 new coronavirus cases and 59 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The national coronavirus response team said on Sunday that 4,780 new infections with the SARS-CoV-2 virus had been detected by PCR tests, while media reported that another 1,221 had been identified by rapid antigen tests.

Currently, 2,140 COVID patients are being treated in hospitals, 178 are on ventilators, while 25,006 people are self-isolating.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case was confirmed in Croatia, 983,780 people have been registered as having been infected with the novel coronavirus. Of this number, 14,137 have died and 917,608 have recovered, including 8,706 in the last 24 hours.

A total of 4,328,022 people have been tested to date, including 10,787 in the last 24 hours.

To date, 5,132,763 vaccine doses have been administered, making up 56.64% of the total population, or 67.39% of the adult population, who have been vaccinated.

A total of 2,298,364 people have received at least one dose while 2,212,347 of them have been fully vaccinated, making up 65.02% of the adult population.

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ZAGREB, 6 Feb 2022 - With 73 deaths per million people, Croatia topped the EU list of COVID deaths in the past week, Jutarnji List newspaper wrote on Sunday.

It noted that the figure confirms misconceptions about a lower risk of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

"Omicron is a milder variant of the coronavirus and its consequences will not be as disastrous as those of Delta. We could ease the restrictions because hospitals are not being filled with too many patients, there is a mild decrease in infections or their number is stagnating. All these are self-delusions and attempts at downplaying the danger of the coronavirus pandemic which, unfortunately, continues to claim a lot of lives, namely more than 50 daily", the newspaper said. 

Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics provided a realistic picture of what the novel coronavirus has done to Croatia in the last two years. 63,611 people died in 2021 alone, 12,000 more than in the pre-pandemic year.

From March 2020, when the pandemic began in Croatia, until December 2021, there was a 16.9% increase in the number of deaths compared with the five-year average for the period preceding the pandemic. This translates to the deaths of 16,146 more Croatian citizens.

"These grim figures could have been much less frustrating had Croatian citizens gotten vaccinated like people in the majority of EU countries, as shown by the number of deaths in the last week", Jutarnji List said.

Despite a large number of infections, the Netherlands did not record a single COVID-19 death in the past week. Germany reported 10 deaths, Austria, which has made vaccination mandatory, registered 11 deaths, while Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Denmark had about 20 deaths per million people. All these countries have high vaccination rates, which produces obvious results. On the other hand, Croatia had 73 deaths and Bulgaria 68 deaths per million people, the newspaper said.

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ZAGREB, 3 Feb 2022 - Health Minister Vili Beroš defended in parliament on Thursday the COVID certificate mandate and children testing as part of the fight against the pandemic and underlined the importance of vaccination because the tourist season could depend on it.

"One of the criteria the European Commission might consider for travel recommendations is the vaccination rate of the domestic population. If it is so, we'll have a problem and won't do well," Beroš told Emil Daus of the Istrian Democratic Party, who asked about plans for the summer tourist season.

Last year we were the champions of safety in the Mediterranean, but this summer the tourism situation might be bad and vaccination is the way out, Beroš said, adding that vaccines protect against serious illness and death also with the new variants.

Submitting a report on coronavirus protocols, he dismissed some MPs' claims that COVID certificates were pointless given that the vaccinated are contagious, too.

"COVID certificates don't represent absolute but optimal safety given what is being invested," Beroš said, adding that the vaccinated are far less contagious than the unvaccinated.

He said no EU member state had abolished the certificates and was not jumping to conclusions.

"Great Britain has abolished them, but it's not in the EU. Denmark is considering it but hasn't abolished them. Some countries with high vaccination rates are considering changing the application of COVID certificates, but are not abolishing them," the minister said, adding that the certificates are an instrument of the European Commission and that they enable travel.

As for the testing of children, Beroš said it was being introduced not only for health safety but to allow children to go to school. Testing is harmless and is being conducted in 16 European countries, he added.

Defending the justification of testing, the minister said that since it was introduced in the public sector, 1.6 million tests had been done and that 116,000 came back positive.

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ZAGREB, 3 Feb 2022 - Minister Nikolina Brnjac and tourism sector representatives warned on Thursday about the need to have a higher rate of vaccination against COVID-19 in the country, calling on the sector and other stakeholders to be responsible so as to maintain the current good situation with bookings.

The tourism minister and officials said this after this year's first session of the Council for Tourism Development and Recovery, at which Brnjac informed sector representatives about work on a new tourism strategy and new developments regarding labor.

Brnjac said a new online system for the registration and import of workers would be put into operation on 1 March, which would expedite the process.

Speaking of the new rules of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), on which a country's color now also depends on the vaccination rate, Brnjac said that the vaccination rate in the Mediterranean is already much higher than in Croatia.

"Even though the vaccination rate in the tourism sector is around 70% and the sector was among the first to respond to the vaccination campaign, we call for maintaining a responsible approach because it is vital to avoid ending up as a dark red zone," she said.

Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ) assistant director Marija Bubaš said that all EU countries were now dark red on the ECDC map but that most that had a higher vaccination rate were expected to see a larger drop in infections than Croatia.

Hoteliers worried despite good booking

Even though the situation with bookings for this year's tourist season, notably summer, is good, the head of the Hoteliers Association at the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK), Josipa Jutt Ferlan, said hoteliers were worried about the increase in infections as well as the rising energy and other prices.

"We are actually again back to square one and we hope that all our efforts to fight the pandemic will not go to waste. One should really work on raising the awareness that the vaccination rate is insufficient and needs to be higher. That is why it is still too early to say if the start of the tourist season will be good or not," she said.

The head of the UHPA association of travel agencies, Tomislav Fain, said that the booking for this season was good and even better than for 2019, but he, too, warned that agency and other bookings in tourism and travel, in general, depend much on rules restricting travel, calling for making those rules uniform.

H​​​e also thanked the government for continuing its job-keeping support for travel agencies.

For more, check out our politics section.

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ZAGREB, 3 Feb 2022 - Science and Education Minister Radovan Fuchs said on Thursday that the self-testing of students would start once the Buffer Stock Directorate delivered tests to schools, and that testing would be conducted in three stages, after which they would hopefully no longer be necessary. 

Parents will test their children for coronavirus voluntarily on Mondays, and if a positive case is identified in a class, testing will be done again and students who test negative will continue attending face-to-face classes.

We assume parents will not cheat because the purpose of this measure is to make it possible for as many children as possible to continue attending physical classes, Fuchs said, recalling that entire classes had to go online just because a few students were positive.

The testing will be conducted for a month, and if everything is as we plan it to be, we will switch to testing only in those classes where a positive case is identified, the minister said.

The third stage is the cancellation of self-testing, he said, expressing hope that eventually it would be possible to abolish the mandatory wearing of face masks in schools.

The Buffer Stock Directorate will today open bids for the procurement of tests and the beginning of self-testing will depend on when schools are supplied with the tests, the minister said, adding that he would talk to school principals via video link today and that the Croatian Public Health Institute had prepared instructions for parents.

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