ZAGREB, June 27, 2020 - A new shipment with around 194 tonnes of protective medical equipment has arrived in the port of Rijeka from China aboard the Maersk Huacho vessel, the government has said.

The equipment includes goggles, uniforms, and gloves which the government has bought from the MEHECO company.

The value of the shipment is around $10.2 million. The latest purchase, too, was fully financed from the European Regional Development Fund which has so far granted Croatia around €50 million for the procurement of protective equipment to fight the novel coronavirus.

ZAGREB, June 26, 2020 - Croatia has confirmed 56 new cases of the coronavirus and currently, the total number of people infected since the outbreak stands at 2,539, the national COVID-19 response team said on Friday.

"Fifty-six new cases have been identified in the past 24 hours, which means that 2,539 people have been infected with the coronavirus," deputy director of the Croatian Institute for Public Health (HZJZ) Marija Bubas told a press conference.

There are 23 new cases in Zagreb, 12 in Osijek-Baranja County, 5 each in Primorje-Gorski Kotar, Split-Dalmatia, and Zagreb counties, 2 each in Zadar and Koprivnica-Krizevci counties and 1 each in Brod-Posavina and Varazdin counties.

A total of 75,437 sample tests have been taken, including 780 in the past 24 hours. 51 patients are being treated in hospitals however there aren't any patients connected to ventilators.

To date, 2,150 people have recovered from the virus while the death toll stands at 107.

ZAGREB, June 26, 2020 - The Croatian government's Health Council agreed at a meeting on Friday that in the present situation of an increasing number of new coronavirus cases it was not necessary to impose a quarantine but to monitor developments and increase self-discipline, the prime minister's chief of staff, Zvonimir Frka-Petesic, said.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said that specialists presented a multidisciplinary overview of the present epidemiological situation in the world and an analysis of Croatia's strategy in fighting the virus.

It was noted that the share of hospitalised cases in Croatia was now twice as low as in the first wave. Currently, about 18 percent of infected people are receiving hospital treatment compared with 37 percent in the period to June 1.

There are no serious cases at the moment, but that does not mean that there will not be any, which is why people should exercise caution and observe physical distancing and hygienic measures, Frka Petesic said.

"If we all adhere to the measures, then we can carry on with economic activities and tourism. It is important now to start preparing for the autumn when the situation is expected to get worse, and to monitor the present situation and keep it under control," he added.

Speaking of tourists, he said that about 260,000 tourists were currently vacationing in Croatia and the reported cases of the infection did not come from EU countries but from Croatians who returned from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"That's the bulk of these cases that caused the increase in the number of infections. There is still no connection between the number of tourists and the spike in the epidemic," Frka-Petesic stressed.

We can't have a lockdown and function like China

Scientist Gordan Lauc said: "Croatia has a population of four million. We can't have a lockdown, we can't function like China which has locked itself down and is trying to prevent anyone from entering. The whole of Europe is in a similar situation, and opening up to countries with a similar situation to ours should not be a problem."

"If the virus starts spreading suddenly and we see a lot of sick people and people in intensive care dying, the only weapon currently available to us is social distancing. It need not be a quarantine," he added. 

Citing the results of research, he said that in situations when there were no restrictions people behaved in a similar way "because if you see people in hospitals dying, you will make sure that you don't come into contact with the virus."

Speaking of the latest cases, Lauc said that it did not mean that they had emerged in two days, but that micro-hotspots had been located where the virus spread. "If you isolate Djakovo, Zadar, a hospital in Zagreb, there are not so many more cases than there were before, it's not as if the virus has spread suddenly,” Lauc said.

ZAGREB, June 25, 2020 - The director of the Fran Mihaljevic Infectious Diseases Hospital said on Thursday that there were currently two hotspots of the COVID-19 infection in Croatia, one in the eastern city of Djakovo and the other in the capital Zagreb, which account for half the number of the newest cases of the disease.

"We have two hotspots, one in Djakovo and the other in the Sv. Ivan hospital in Zagreb and they account for half the number of people registered today in Croatia. The others are individual cases in various areas," Markotic told the N1 television channel commenting on the spike in the number of infections as Croatia recorded 95 new cases in the past 24 hours.

Markotic said that for an entire month since the borders were open, Croatia fared well, however, in the past two weeks there has been an increased number of citizens who travelled to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina where there are still a large number of people infected.

"At the same time, we knew that certain risks existed with the possibility of people being allowed free movement and with arrivals, however, it is important to adhere to the measures in place," she added.

Markotic explained that compulsory self-isolation had been imposed for travellers from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and North Macedonia because that is where the largest number of infected people had come from to Croatia.

"These are at the same time in line with the European Commission's stance towards third countries, while on the other hand that is where the highest number of infected people came from," she said, adding that she hoped the measures would be short-term.

Asked about citizens with dual citizenship, Markotic said that the virus does not recognise citizenship.

She commented on the issue of open borders with countries that have also recorded a spike in infected people like Germany, saying that there had not been many cases of infected people coming from there.

"If that were to occur, then the same measure would be imposed on them too," she said.

She added that the European Commission had recommended opening and closing borders with countries in the region that have a similar epidemiological situation.

Markotic commented on the decision to face masks to be compulsory on public transport, adding that she personally did not support penalising people.

"Conscious, serious, and responsible people should not need to be penalised after we explained so many times about the need to wear masks. It would have been better if we didn't have to make wearing masks mandatory," she added.

Markotic commented on public opinion that the national response team was in fact a Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) team and had nothing to do with the medical profession.

"I haven't experienced that. I have never been a member of any political party, including this one," she said and added that she has also experienced successful cooperation with non-HDZ members on the response team.

She claimed that the politicking came from other sources and not the response team.

"The politicking has probably resulted from electioneering and the attempt to politicise and undermine the authenticity of what the response team has been saying may have partially contributed to this situation," said Markotic.

ZAGREB, June 25, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic on Thursday responded to the leader of the centre-left Restart coalition, Davor Bernardic about the parliamentary election being held in these insecure times of the coronavirus epidemic, saying that Croatia was a safe country and that the situation was under control.

"Croatia is a safe country. As for Bernardic's comments, unlike him, we have retained jobs and employment and supported the workers. That means a responsible policy and a safe Croatia," Plenkovic said during a visit to the eastern town of Pozega when asked by the press to comment on Bernardic's statement that the HDZ had pushed Croatia into elections expecting to gain a political profit from the coronavirus crisis, thus putting citizens' lives at risk.

Commenting on the spike in the number of new coronavirus cases in the country, the prime minister said that the situation was under control. 

"We overcame the first wave of the outbreak with strong restrictive measures and moves to help businesses. We have the same number of people employed as before the crisis, which is excellent. Now we are seeing a rise in the number of infections. The virus is here with us, but none of the people are in critical condition or on ventilators," Plenkovic said.

He said that lessons had been learned from March so that today Croatia has a resilient healthcare system, well-prepared medical staff, and doctors, as well as epidemiologists who are processing all contacts,

Considering an increased number of people coming from other countries, the rise in new cases is not unexpected and is not something that Croatia cannot cope with, he added.

"This is not dramatic because according to the information that I get, my impression is that there are no critical patients. I can't say that the virus has mutated or that the summer COVID is milder, we will see that, but our services are keeping the situation under control and it will stay that way in the future," Plenkovic said.

ZAGREB, June 24, 2020 - Health Minister Vili Beros said in Split on Wednesday that 92% of the newly infected people with COVID-19 are younger than 60 and that they do not have clinical symptoms, which is an indirect indicator that the virus has mutated.

"I read a scientific article about that but we won't speculate as the virus is with us and we are aware that we have to be responsible and cautious," Beros said.

Responding to questions from reporters, Beros said that all tourists who fall ill would be taken care of in health institutions, while those not exhibiting symptoms would need to self-isolate. That is why it has been suggested that quarantine areas be set up to accommodate such tourists, he added.

"Given that most of them will be in good condition, bilateral talks are being held with countries tourists are coming from to arrange their repatriation. I don't think that any country will prevent the return of its own citizens as long as they are ordered to self-isolate. We are also developing additional capacities for testing everyone in order to remove any doubt of them being positive or not," Beros said.

Reporters were interested whether any charges would be laid in the wake of the Adria Tour tennis tournament in Zadar where the first case was registered on Sunday when Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov admitted that he was infected with the novel coronavirus.

Beros said that repressive measures were not in his remit but that he appeals to all organisers of similar events to ensure consistent observance of physical distancing, hygiene, and other recommendations.

Beros confirmed that no new cases had been registered in Split-Dalmatia or Istria counties and that there were fewer new cases in Croatia today than yesterday.

June 24, 2020 — The weeks-long parade of exposed faces and casual disregard for social distancing made the coronavirus’s return to Zadar, in retrospect, seem inevitable. It took the world’s no. 1 tennis player getting infected for anyone to notice the mask of responsibility slipping off.

At the opening press event for the Adria Tour’s Zadar leg, Nikolina Babić, the president of the Croatian Tennis Association, said organizers would “adhere to all measures prescribed by [authorities], with everyone having to think about themselves first, and thus protect others.” Organizers then reportedly symbolically distributed masks to the naked-faced journalists in attendance. 

It was the last time anyone would see masks at an Adria Tour event. Sunshine kissed the face of nearly every attendee at the tour’s various events. The haphazard seating signaled any pretense of “social distancing” vaporized the moment the tennis players arrived — save the lone visage of an elderly man, photographed trying to socially distance while wearing a mask at the event.

The Adria Tour's participants quickly embraced the loose attitude (even before arriving, they enjoyed a night out at a Belgrade night club). 

Social distancing was non-existent at press events and exhibitions. Masks apparently left at home. 

High-fives and selfies all around for locals at packed public press events, as well as mass group pictures and even embracing on the court. 

Even the country’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic took in a match huddled with colleagues and advisors, mask-free and shoulder-to-shoulder.

At its center was the world’ best men’s tennis player, Novak Djokovic, who has resisted calls for compulsory vaccination against COVID-19 and made overtures to alternative medicine, both of which he’s walking back now that he and his wife have tested positive for the virus.

Nearly 100 people who attended the event went into self-isolation, including Zadar’s Mayor Branko Dukić and County Head Božidar Longin. Both politicians’ brief public interactions with tennis players were during press events — out in the open. The Prime Minister’s own contact with Djokovic would require 14 days of self-isolation, according to rules laid out early in the pandemic by the government’s own Civil Protection Directorate, and enforced with HRK 8,000 fines.

The Prime Minister isn’t self-isolating. And the rules, conveniently, have been run through a semantic sausage maker enough times to lose all meaning, and even mismatch on the government’s own coronavirus website.

Deputy mayor Šime Vicković said in an interview with HRT that hosting the Adria Tour wasn’t a mistake.

"At the time when the decision was made to hold such a tournament, the situation in Croatia was positive in terms of the epidemiological picture and I think we were not wrong. Unfortunately, the fact is that we had one positive person and who made a certain, so to speak, mess now among us in the area of Zadar County.

"I think we did not make a mistake because this was a great success for the city of Zadar and Zadar County," Vickovic said.

Many worry the coming Parliamentary election has politicized the virus and infected a once-upstanding Civil Protection Directorate. But the casual disregard for the precautions started well before Djokovic and company arrived.

In fact, I saw it during my first day out in Zadar after nationwide restrictions began slowly loosening. 

It started, oddly, at a recycling center.

***

“You got cancer?”

“No.”

“Some other problems with your lungs?”

“No.”

I dumped my recyclable plastics into a dumpster, then shifted over to metals. My interrogator followed me.

“Someone in your family sick?”

“No.” 

I tossed some tins and soda cans over the edge of the receptacle. The attendant at the recycling center on the outskirts of Zadar had been orbiting me since I got out of my car. He watched as I dumped the trash bags full of recyclables I accrued during the lockdown.

“You’re a young and healthy guy?”

“Is that a question or are you telling me?”

“I’m just wondering why you have a mask on.”

I turned towards him, squinting in the sun, my chin sweating under my mask. He stared at me as if I were glowing.

“My wife’s pregnant,” I said. “I am not f*cking around. The masks cost me nothing, and it shouldn’t bother you.”

He paused.

“Are you scared?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then I still don’t understand… why wear a mask?” he asked, the corners of his mouth turning down.

It was late May. Croatia was sweeping away the cobwebs of a pandemic-slowing lockdown. 

The Adriatic coast prepared to save whatever it could of the coming tourism season. Press was good. Hopes were high.

Yet despite the collective isolation and ensuing bad vibes, many of Zadar’s locals relished their newfound freedoms. I could tell by their smiles.

Squirt-bottles of hand sanitizer greeting every customer slowly migrated away from entrances. First to tables, then next to cash registers, before disappearing. Face masks crawled down cashiers’ faces day by day. First exposing a nose, then creating an aqua green papery beard, until finally one day, all pretense of responsibility vanished and the masks disappeared as well.

Walking the streets over the last few weeks, one would be hard-pressed to even know a pandemic was sweeping the planet. Public transportation, especially the ferries, returned to their pre-pandemic bacchanalias. Public mask wearers quickly became the outliers, not the norm. Handshakes came back with a vengeance.

Into this pandemic-era Gomorrah stepped the Adria Tour. Zadar was still at zero active infections at the time. New infections jumped around the rest of the country the before tennis tournament arrived.

During the pandemic’s first swing through Croatia, I’d heard enough first and second-hand accounts of COVID-19 testing criteria seemingly improvised at the whim of whoever answered the phone that day. The public accounts matched the same inconsistencies.

One young woman turned herself in for testing after returning from Dubai, even though the country wasn’t on the list of coronavirus hotbeds. She ended up Zadar’s first positive case. 

A week later, an older man — a guy I heard about — returned from Turkey with a list of symptoms that overlaps the COVID-19 checklist. He was dismissed for days. Turkey had few infections at the time. Finally, epidemiologists tested him after some string-pulling and glad-handing required to get pretty much anything done. He was Zadar’s fourth case.

Those inconsistencies resurface after the Adria Tour left, and not just in Plenkovic's case.

Croatia’s Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said anyone who came into contact with a tennis player should go into self-isolation and will be contacted by an epidemiologist. Yet many have not.

The minister also downplayed any lapses by government officials and organizers who let the tournament and promotional events go on without enforcing social distancing rules, claiming individuals were responsible for their own behavior.

"We have shown that we know how to stop the virus,” he said. "This is not a situation we cannot deal with, I am sure that in the coming days the level of awareness among people, among all those who organize events, will rise and that we will return to even lower figures.”

Epidemiologists in Zadar said in a press conference that locals who attended the tournament need not worry.

"People who have been on the courts, in the stands, do not need to worry and should not go into self-isolation,” according to Dr. Alan Medic, chief epidemiologist for Zadar County. Kids who walked on the tennis courts shouldn’t go to school, he added.

Now, Health Minister Vili Beroš has evolved from a stoic caretaker of public health to a peddler of contested theories, the latest claiming the virus mutated into a benign bug. Initially, he said it will go away on its own without a second wave.

“I think the virus, like its predecessors SARS and MERS, will do what it does and disappear into history,” he said in an interview on HRT.

The tennis court which hosted the Adria Tour disappeared into history. The coronavirus remains.

ZAGREB, June 24, 2020 - Following the emergence of coronavirus at a tennis tournament in Zadar at the weekend, another 74 samples were tested on Tuesday and all returned negative, the local coronavirus crisis response team said on Tuesday evening.

A total of 186 people have been tested since Sunday, and 123 are under "active observation," the response team said.

The epidemiological situation in the Zadar area is good, and the crisis response team asked the public to continue to adhere to the measures in place to maintain the present situation.

Four people attending the Zadar leg of the Adria Tour tournament have tested positive for COVID-19, which prompted the organisers to cancel the competition. The first case was detected on Sunday after Bulgarian tennis player Grigor Dimitrov did a test in Monaco after returning from Zadar and reported that he had been infected. Croatian tennis player Borna Coric, the coaches for the world's no. 1 tennis player, Serbian Novak Djokovic, and Grigor Dimitrov, and a five-year-old child have also tested positive.

Djokovic later confirmed that he, too, was positive after doing a test in Belgrade. He said he was feeling good and had no symptoms.

ZAGREB, June 23, 2020 - Peasant Party (HSS) leader Kreso Beljak said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic should self-isolate considering his recent contact with Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic, who has confirmed that he is positive to the coronavirus.

"Plenkovic HAS TO go into self-isolation! Immediately," Beljak said on Twitter.

The head of the GLAS party, Anka Mrak-Taritas, also tweeted that Plenkovic would have immediately gone into self-isolation if he was a "responsible leader who cared for the safety of citizens as he presents himself on his campaign posters."

Former leader of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) Jadranka Kosor too believes that Penkovic should immediately self-isolate, as does an independent member of the Zagreb City Assembly, Renato Petek, who tweeted in response to Djokovic's news, "And Plenkovic, nothing! Special immunity for a leader of a safe country."

Leader of the Human Shield party Vilibor Sincic wondered on his Facebook profile whether some people were untouchable after all.

"Today I attended a trial against Dragutin Hanzek, who was fined HRK 8,000 for violating self-isolation rules. Do other rules apply to Plenkovic or is he going into self-isolation? Sincic wrote. 

Earlier in the day the head of the Croatian Institute for Public Health Krunoslav Capak said that the epidemiological situation would be further complicated if Djokovic were to test positive for the coronavirus because he was in close contact with a lot of people who would have to go into self-isolation.

Asked whether Pllenkovic would have to go into self-isolation given his contact with Djokovic, Capak said that according to epidemiological standards there was no physical contact between them but that they only touched fists which, he claimed is not considered to be a close contact because their encounter in closed premises lasted for less than three minutes.

"If Djokovic proves positive the prime minister does not have to go into self-isolation but he was tested as a precaution and his test was negative," Capak said.

As for his meeting with Serbian player Novak Djokovic,  Plenkovic said earlier in the day: "We said hello. I thanked him for the tournament taking place in Zadar, we took photos and went our ways. I think there is nothing to fear."

After hearing that Djokovic had tested positive, Plenkovic said that he was aware that the Social Democratic Party (SDP) would like for their leader Davor Bernardic to avoid an election debate and that now they wanted to get rid of him by putting him in self-isolation. "But's that's not gonna happen," he said.

ZAGREB, June 23, 2020 - Thirty new cases of infection with the novel COVID-19 coronavirus have been confirmed in Croatia in the last 24 hours.

To date, 2,366 cases have been identified, including 30 in the last 24 hours, the national coronavirus crisis management team said on Tuesday.

Most of the new cases were registered in the City of Zagreb and Osijek-Baranja County (12 each), two each were identified in Zagreb County and Dubrovnik-Neretva County, and one each in Istria County and Slavonski Brod-Posavina County.

Sixteen people are being treated in hospitals and none of them are on a ventilator. A total of 2,142 patients have recovered to date and the death toll remains at 107.

A total of 73,093 people have been tested to date, including 347 in the last 24 hours.

Health Minister Vili Beros commented on the latest data during a visit to Split.

"This points to the need that we should remain cautious," he told reporters in Split.

"The number of new cases is rising, but not exponentially. In epidemiological terms, it is important that we have ten infections in one building because it is not the same if ten infections occur in one place or in different cities," Beros said. "This is a better epidemiological situation."

He said the rise in infections was as expected given that the virus was still present. He said hospitals must be prepared because tourists were in the country and new hotspots could appear. "We must be prepared."

Beros said that despite the recent increase in infections, Croatia and Slovenia had the lowest number of active cases in Europe.

"Our epidemiological situation is still good but this doesn't mean that we can relax because caution is still necessary," he added.

"What is important is that since this morning there have been no new cases in Zadar, all the new patients there are in a good condition, showing no symptoms," the minister said.