As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of July, 2020, at a recent e-consultation, the proposal of the National Programme for Assistance to the Wine Sector for the period 2019-2023 was published, giving ''birth'' to the so-called wine envelope, which significantly increases funding for crisis distillation and crisis storage measures, which is excellent news for Croatian winemakers.

Instead of the originally planned 43 million kuna, the Ministry of Agriculture provided an additional 13 million kuna, so now the total support for the stabilisation of the wine market which will certainly allow Croatian winemakers to breathe a sigh of relief amounts to 56 and a half million kuna.

"The Wine Association of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) welcomes such a decision, which envisages a significant increase in funds for crisis distillation and the crisis storage of wine from 43 million kuna to 56 and a half million kuna. Specifically, for the measure of crisis distillation of wine, the funds were increased from 38 million kuna to 46.5 million kuna, and for the measure of crisis storage of the wine, there was an increase from 5 million to 10 million kuna. I believe that the funds will be fully used and that they will significantly mitigate the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the decline in tourist spending, because we shouldn't forget that Croatian winemakers sell about 70 percent of their total production through the tourism sector and through HOREC channels,'' said HGK's Vice President for Agriculture and Tourism, Dragan Kovačević, adding that this is another example of good cooperation between Croatian winemakers and the Ministry of Agriculture.

Namely, the crisis caused by the spread of the new coronavirus has strongly affected the wine sector, so the Croatian Chamber of Commerce proposed changes to the so-called wine envelope to the Ministry of Agriculture even earlier.

Wine sales in Croatia have a very seasonal character, ie, a significant percentage is related to the tourist season, which this year will be at 30 percent of the level it was in previous years, which has already led to a drop in wine sales of 80 percent in the pre-season. An average annual decline of 50 percent is expected.

Crisis distillation and storage programmes will help Croatian winemakers and the wine sector to bridge current liquidity, preserve employment and prepare for the purchase of grapes in the 2020 harvest, not only through financial support but also by removing surplus wine from their cellars.

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As the Dutch warn their citizens against all but essential travel to Croatia amid the coronavirus pandemic, Germany decides to keep Croatia on its ''safe'' list...

As Index writes on the 23rd of July, 2020, after the Dutch placed Croatia on the orange list, which means that those who return home to the Netherlands from Croatia need to spend fourteen days in self-isolation, some good news has arrived from Germany.

The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs has kept Croatia on its list of safe countries, the Croatian Tourism Association announced.

Below is their statement:

"In the latest report published today by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Croatia is [classed] as a safe destination and there are no restrictions on travel and return to Germany.

Germany is the largest European emitting market [for Croatia], and the Germans have been the most numerous group of guests in Croatia for many years. Since the beginning of this year, Germans have realised more than 4 million overnight stays in our country, of which 2.5 million took place during the first 20 days of July.

Since Bavaria, from which a third of German guests come, will start with their school holidays next week, a further increase of arrivals of German tourists in Croatia is expected.

In almost five months, since the first case of coronavirus infection was recorded in Croatia, there is still no official information that even one foreign tourist has become infected in the commercial tourism sector,'' they announced.

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ZAGREB, July 23, 2020 - Slovenia will not put Croatia for now on the red list of countries for which quarantine is mandatory, Slovenian Health Minister Tomaz Gantar said in Ljubljana on Thursday.

For now "there is no initiative to declare Croatia a red zone," he told press.

Decisions on putting countries on the red list are not made so fast and epidemiologists who follow the situation in neighbouring countries want these decisions to be agreed and that there is a joint response, Gantar said.

It is good, he added, that Croatia has imposed new measures to contain the spread of coronavirus and restricted entry from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro, all of which are on Slovenia's red list.

According to its Public Health Institute, Slovenia had 12 new cases per 100,000 over the past fortnight. Croatia had twice as many. Both are in the yellow epidemiological zone.

Gantar said that in order to determine a destination's safety, besides the number of coronavirus cases, additional criteria were being used over the past fortnight, such as whether a country was a neighbour with a high passenger frequency or a distant one from which the risk of importing the virus was far smaller.

Also taken into account is the number of persons tested per inhabitants and a comparison with Slovenia's epidemiological situation.

July 23, 2020 - The Croatian Institute of Public Health announced new recommendations for holding concerts in Croatia.

Index.hr reports that the recommendations state that a person who has been abroad for the last 14 days and does not have a negative corona test taken in the last 48 hours must not participate in the gatherings.

The stage and performers must be four meters away from the audience. A distance of two meters between singers and musicians with wind instruments is also recommended.

The maximum number of people allowed to be at a concert or event is also limited, which is 500 people indoors and 1,000 people outdoors.

The Croatian Public Health Institute recommends that there be only seats, but in case of need for standing seats, it is recommended to set up standing tables, with a distance of one and a half meters. There may be a maximum of 100 standing places.

At all events, a 1.5-meter distance between people is recommended.

Recall, two men died at the Osijek Clinical Hospital on Wednesday, born in 1946 and 1945, bringing the number of coronavirus fatalities in Croatia to 125 since the beginning of the epidemic. There are 143 people in hospital and nine on a ventilator, and the average age of the patients is 47.1 years.

The director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, pointed out on Monday that there were no new hotspots, and that 40 patients were from Vukovar-Srijem County.

"Most of these cases are related to one wedding and several larger gatherings that took place in the last few days," he said, adding that there are a slightly higher number of new cases in Istria, 19, but half are contacts of previously ill people.

One tourist was also infected, but the share of tourists in the total number of patients is minor, in contrast to large weddings where 234 people became infected, which is more than 10 percent of the total number of patients in the last month.

Another 134 of them are associated with other types of larger gatherings, such as confirmations, first communions, and the like. More than 100 cases have been linked to nightclubs in the past month.

To read more about news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page. 

July 22, 2020 - Dutch media on why Croatia was put on the orange list, thereby requiring a recommended 14-day self-isolation on return from Croatia. 

We received a message from a reader in the Netherlands:

Yesterday the Dutch government gave a negative travel advice for Croatia. Lots of Dutch people already booked a holiday in Croatia, but now they can’t travel. Lots of people were surprised, because in Istria (where lots of Dutch people go during the summer holiday) there is no Corona contamination. The people want to know why they don’t give regional advice instead of for the whole country. The explanation was: because the Croatian government did not supply us with up-to-date information, we cannot do anything else than advise against travel to Croatia.

Croatia's borders remain open to all countries from the EU, EEA and the UK without restriction. In the last couple of days, however, first Lithuania and now the Netherlands have placed a 14-day self-isolation requirement on those returning from a holiday in Croatia. It seems a strange decision to many, given the worse situation elsewhere, but Dutch media is suggesting that part of the problem might be our old friend, Croatian bureaucracy. 

As Croatia 'breathes tourism', to quote the somewhat ill-judged corona-era metaphor of outgoing Minister of Tourism, Gari Cappelli, and while the Croatian police are busy answering all the tourism emails, it appears that the Kings of Accidental Tourism are still too busy to update the relevant EU partner authorities with the important information. When I asked our reader for a source, she provided a source:

According to RIVM the National Institute of Public Health spokesperson Loes Hartman, this has to do with a shortage of data. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) receives data from European countries on a daily basis. That information is then forwarded to RIVM. "Croatia is only divided into two regions: the information is not available in more detail," Hartman explains. "There was not much difference between those two regions. You should ask Croatia why so little data is being sent."

"Portugal did send more detailed information. "That country literally said: here we have outbreaks." As a result, RIVM had the necessary data to make regional decisions. 

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ZAGREB, July 22, 2020 - In the last 24 hours, Croatia has recorded 108 new coronavirus cases and two deaths, Health Minister Vili Beros told a press conference on Wednesday.

The number of people currently infected with the novel virus is 1,127 and the death toll has reached 125.

Two men, one born in 1945 and the other in 1946, died in the KBC hospital in the eastern city of Osijek. Both had underlying pathological conditions and one of them was on a ventilator.

Since February 25, when the first case was reported in Croatia, the number of people testing positive for the COVID-19 virus has reached 4,530. A total of 106,805 people have been tested, including 1,279 in the last 24 hours, and the rate of positive cases is 4.24%.

Currently, 143 infected people are receiving hospital treatment and nine of them are on ventilators. The average age of patients is 47.1 years.

To date, 3,278 people have recovered from the infection. Twelve have been discharged from hospital in the last 24 hours, bringing their number to 1,051, while 78 have recovered at home, or 2,256 people in total.

Travel agencies are now collecting data on Dutch tourists holidaying in Croatia as the country places Croatia on its 'orange list' following a surge in new cases of infection with the new coronavirus.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 22nd of July, 2020, Dutch nationals spending their holidays in Croatia are now being advised to return to their country immediately, and everyone else has been warned against travel, being told that they should travel to Croatia only if it is absolutely necessary. Upon their return to the Netherlands, fourteen-day isolation is strongly recommended, according to a report from Večernji list.

The Dutch foreign ministry has, as stated, issued an orange warning for the Republic of Croatia over the deteriorating epidemiological situation and the increase in coronavirus infections. Travel agencies are now collecting data on Dutch tourists currently staying in Croatia, and the ANVR sector association estimates that there are thousands of them.

Those tourists who have paid for package deals will be returned to the Netherlands by the responsible travel agencies with whom said deals were booked.

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July 21, 2020 - The first case of coronavirus infection has occurred in the Croatian Government: The Ministry of Public Administration issued a statement saying that their Minister, Ivan Malenica, tested positive for coronavirus yesterday. 

The Minister got tested after he first experienced symptoms on Monday, and his test results came back positive. He is feeling OK and is experiencing only mild symptoms of the disease. He plans to continue working from home, while self-isolating, the statement said.

The Ministry also reported that Malenica last saw the other cabinet members last Thursday and the Croatian media reports that the Minister also spent the weekend with his family in Šibenik. It has not been reported how the Minister might've gotten infected. The self-isolation measure has been issued for the Minister's driver, and the officials were given the list of his close contacts for the last 48 hours, which don't include the Ministry staff.

ZAGREB, July 21, 2020 - The national COVID-19 response team on Tuesday reported 49 new coronavirus cases, 1,116 active cases, and one more dead.

Among the active cases are 138 hospitalised patients, including nine on ventilators, the team said in a press release, adding that the death toll was now 123.

Since February 25, when SARS-CoV-2 was first recorded in Croatia, there have been 4,422 cases of infection with the novel coronavirus.

At the moment 3,937 persons are self-isolating. To date, 105,526 persons have been tested, including 1,394 over the past 24 hours.

July 21, 2020 - On Monday, 25 coronavirus cases were recorded in Croatia, which is the lowest number in the last month.

Last weekend, 309 gatherings of more than 100 people were held, and we will see the outcome of that in five to seven days. A particularly problematic gathering was a wedding in Ivankovo, where 50 people became infected. Vukovar-Srijem County is the current focus of the corona crisis and, thus, the county with the strictest measures.

Index.hr reports that, according to Minister Bozinovic, new measures will be introduced for the whole of Croatia this weekend, and we will find out on Wednesday precisely what these measures are.

The director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Krunoslav Capak, was a guest on RTL Danas on Monday.

"The National Headquarters has been talking for some time about limiting the number of participants in various gatherings, which is an epidemiological problem. I guess it will happen, but I can't say. We are talking about the number that would be allowed, there is no decision yet on the agenda," Capak said.

In Slovenia, the maximum number of participants at a gathering is 50, and at the request of the Health Institute, this number may be higher with special restrictions. There are many more at gatherings in our country, and Capak says that the Croatian Public Health Institute cannot prescribe it individually.

Asked if the Headquarters were wrong not to impose restrictions on gatherings earlier, Capak replied: "We are continuously talking about the need to get used to the coronavirus lifestyle. We felt that these numbers we gave, with the limitations we gave in the recommendations, were not excessive. If everyone followed the recommendations, the situation would be better. Whether it is better to discuss stricter measures and oversight of those measures or to limit the number is very difficult to decide. We try to balance between letting the population live normally, but with recommendations and education to bring the number of patients lower."

To the reporter's claim that it is similar to the Swedish model, Capak reminds us that Croatia is very far from Sweden.

"They are the most liberal country in Europe and one of the most liberal in the world. They did not have a quarantine. They let the economy work normally, schools and kindergartens worked, it is a completely different situation than in Croatia," he said.

He described what an epidemiologist's hunt for the contacts of an infected person from a wedding looks like.

"In two cases when there was a large gathering, epidemiologists informed citizens through the media to put themselves in isolation and report to an epidemiologist or doctor if they were at the gathering, but even that was not well received among citizens. We corrected that, we offered help to epidemiologists to talk to all these participants, it’s a terribly hard job. Imagine you have to contact 300 people in a couple of days. We have cases where people don’t want to admit they’ve been in contact, especially if it’s a company that, if it closes, can’t function. We appeal to the citizens that it is very important, when they are in self-isolation, then they cannot transmit the disease," he said.

He announced new measures for concerts

"We didn't close concerts, but the question is whether it is profitable for a musician to hold a concert with a third of the seats in the hall," he said, and when asked what would change for concerts, he added:

"We would increase the number of participants, to mark all the seats, and to make ticket sales exclusively electronic. Seating will be likely; standing is very difficult to control."

Bozinovic: New measures this weekend

Minister Davor Bozinovic also spoke about the new measures for Dnevnik Nova TV. As he said, stricter measures will start being applied this weekend.

"We will tighten something," Bozinovic said, and when asked by a journalist what exactly, he said the number of people at large gatherings would be limited.

“It turns out you can’t change tradition overnight, and the fact is that all those gatherings where people hug, which is normal, are susceptible to the spread of the coronavirus,” he said.

He says it is up to the epidemiologist how much that number would be limited, but it is certainly less than a hundred, and the measures will be adopted to start to be applied this weekend.

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