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.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated section and select your preferred language if it isn't English.

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.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated section and select your preferred language if it isn't English.

ZAGREB, 30 Jan 2022 - In the past 24 hours, 6,220 new coronavirus infections were detected out of 13,062 PCR tests, while 46 related deaths have been confirmed in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Sunday.

There are 2,008 hospitalized patients, including 185 on ventilators, while 38,731 persons are self-isolating.

To date, 56.53% of the population has been vaccinated. This includes 67.72% of all adults, of which 64.82% are fully vaccinated.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated section and select your preferred language if it isn't English.

ZAGREB, 20 Nov, 2021 -  In the past 24 hours Croatia has registered 65 COVID-19-related deaths and 5,614 new infections, the national COVID-19 response team said on Saturday.

There are currently 34,882 active cases of the infection. A total of 2,542 COVID patients are hospitalised and 320 of them are on ventilators. As many as 27,969 people are in self-isolation.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic in February 2020, there have been 566,118 registered cases of the contagion and 10,243 people have died.

A total of 520,993 people have recovered, including 5,640 in the past 24 hours.

To date, 3,339,432 people have been tested for COVID-19, including 12,823 in the last 24 hours.

52.04% of total population vaccinated

As of Friday, November 19, a total of 3,963,116 doses of vaccine have been administered, with 52.04 per cent of the total population, or 62.14 per cent of the adult population, having been vaccinated.

As of Friday, 2,111,804 people have received at least one dose and 1,889,974 have been fully immunised, which is 55.85 per cent of the adult population.

For more on COVID-19, follow TCN's dedicated page.

For more about Croatia, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 8 Nov, 2021 - Croatia has logged 1,242 new COVID cases in the past 24 hours and 46 people have died as a consequence, the national COVID-19 response team reported on Monday.

There are currently 1,888 hospitalised patients, 246 of whom are on ventilators.

There are currently 29,265 active cases in the country and 24,255 people are self-isolating.

To date, a total of 3,184,660 tests have been conducted, including 3,703 in the past 24 hours.

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, a total of 502,569 people have become infected with the novel coronavirus and 9,546 people have died as a consequence while 463,758 people have recovered, including 3,931 in the past 24 hours.

For more on COVID-19, follow TCN's dedicated page.

For more about Croatia, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 29 Oct 2021 - The rising interest in vaccination is encouraging as over 10,000 citizens have received the first shot in two days, the government said on Friday, adding that the number of those who have received a booster shot it also rising.

The booster shoot is recommended for everyone who was vaccinated six months ago or more as well as for senior citizens and immunocompromised persons, government spokesman Marko Milić tweeted.

Yesterday 13,292 COVID-19 shots were administered.

To date 56.92% of the entire population, including 56.21% of adults, has received the first shot.

For more news, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 24 Sept 2021 - In the past 24 hours 1,291 coronavirus cases and 12 related deaths have been confirmed in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Friday.

There are 8,517 active cases, including 678 hospitalised patients, 92 of whom are on ventilators, while 23,749 persons are self-isolating.

Croatia has registered 397,761 coronavirus cases to date, including 8,566 deaths and 380,678 recoveries, of which 1,377 in the past 24 hours.

To date 2,772,055 persons have been tested for the virus, including 10,201 in the past 24 hours, and 44.34% of the population has been vaccinated, including 53.21% of adults, of whom 49.96% fully.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

ZAGREB, 3 July 2021 - The Croatian Institute of Public Health (HIJZ) on Saturday called for stepping up the vaccination campaign in the country to increase safety against COVID-19.

"Although 1.5 million vaccinated people is a large number, we would be safer at the start of the tourism season if this number was higher, which is why the vaccination campaign should be accelerated. Delaying vaccination even for a few days can trigger a series of unfavourable developments," HZJZ director Krunoslav Capak said.

By Friday, 2 July, 1,500,932 people in Croatia have been vaccinated with at least one dose and 1,132,263 of them have received two doses. An additional 23,240 persons have received the Jannsen vaccine, which requires only one dose, which means that vaccination has been completed for 1,155,503 people, the HZJZ said in a statement, addiing that 37 percent of the total population and 45 percent of the adult population have received one dose.

Capak said that since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, 360,067 cases have been registered and the death toll has reached 8,212. This leads to the conclusion that one in 44 persons in which COVID-19 has been identified dies, he added.

Citing a report by the HALMED regulator, 4,115 suspected side-effects of COVID-19 vaccines have been reported to date, of which 76 percent have been found not to be serious, and to date HALMED has not received any report of a side effect that resulted in death which was found to have been caused by a COVID vaccine, Capak said.

"These figures best show that the vaccines are safe, so we appeal to the people who have not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated," Capak said.

 For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and choose your preferred language.

ZAGREB, 5 June 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Saturday that 40% of Croatia's adult population had been vaccinated against COVID-19.

"We have made a new step forward - 40 percent of the adult population has been vaccinated. A thank-you to the vaccinators for each dose administered and to the vaccinated citizens for their trust in science and experts. We are on the right track to vaccinate more than half of Croatia's adult population," Beroš tweeted.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, he said vaccination in Croatia was proceeding as planned. "We are closer and closer to the goal of achieving collective immunity by the end of June, but it's important to maintain an equally high vaccination intensity."

coTo check out a more detailed look into the Covid-19 situation in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page..

ZAGREB, 22 March, 2021 - By Sunday, 390,657 doses of vaccine had been used with a total of 311,448 people vaccinated, including 232,239 of those who received one dose of vaccine and 79,209 who received both doses, Croatia's  COVID-19 crisis management team reported on Monday.

Medical regulator HALMED has so far received 1,896 reports of suspected side effects of vaccines against COVID-19, of which 1,064 for Pfizer, 108 for Moderna and 722 for AstraZeneca. In two cases it was not clear which vaccine caused side effects. 

The HZJZ institute head, Krunoslav Capak, said that the vaccination process was continuing according to plan, adding that the first third of the second phase of vaccination, covering persons older than 65 years and chronic patients, had been completed. He said that younger people would be prioritised after the completion of the second phase. 

He recalled that Croatia had so far ordered 8.7 million doses of vaccine from different manufacturers, adding that greater deliveries were expected in the second quarter of the year.

Average age of infected people down from 49.9 to 42.5 years

The average age of infected people has decreased from 49.9 to 42.5 years, Capak said.

The director of Zagreb's Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Alemka Markotić, said that the number of hospitalisations was increasing in Zagreb and Split, and that most of those hospitalised were aged between 50 and 60 years.

Asked by the press about the possibility of reinfection with COVID-19, Markotić cited a Danish study published in The Lancet journal showing that the protection against reinfection was about 79%.

However, people older than 65 were only about 47% protected on average. The conclusion is that people older than 65 years should be revaccinated even if they have recovered from COVID-19 because the risk of their reinfection is high. "People older than 65 are definitely more at risk," Markotić said.

Capak said that there were reports of several cases of reinfection in Croatia, but that their symptoms were mild.

Responding to a question about COVID passports for people who were vaccinated with the Chinese or Russian vaccine, the head of the national response team, Interior Minister Davor Božinović, said that talks had only just begun on issuing interoperable certificates at EU level to facilitate travel and that the situation in this regard would be clearer later this month.

"Some of the EU countries have taken the view that such certificates should be issued only for vaccines approved by the European Medicines Agency. Croatia is not in that group of countries, but talks on this are still ongoing," Božinović said.

If the purpose of such certificates is to facilitate travel for those who have been tested, vaccinated or who have recovered from COVID-19, Božinović hopes that this will not put too tight restrictions on the tourism sector because most EU countries started by vaccinating elderly people, who are in a more advantageous position that young people as far as travel is concerned.

This issue should be dealt with by early June, but that does not mean that countries like Croatia will not do all they can to alleviate the situation in the tourism sector by then, Božinović said.

As for demands by some of the counties in Croatia for stricter measures, Božinović said that it was yet to be seen what local and county response teams would decide this week. He ruled out the possibility of passes being introduced for inter-regional travel in Croatia for the Easter holidays. He said that the aim was to contain the epidemic in the counties with higher incidence rates, adding that steps had already been taken to inspect compliance with the measures in place.