ZAGREB, 3 March, 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Wednesday that during his talks with a Russian delegation he had called for expediting the delivery of documentation on the Russian COVID-19 vaccine so that Croatia's HALMED regulator could evaluate the vaccine's safety and efficiency.

"The meeting yesterday with the Russian ambassador does not indicate that we are abandoning the European Commission's common procurement but is rather a sign that we are looking for complementary methods that will be in line with the EC and Croatian regulations," the minister told a news conference.

He said that it was possible to obtain the vaccine without the approval of the European Medicines Agency and that the analysis by HALMED would take some time, but that he was talking about days and weeks, not months.

Yesterday's meeting was held at the proposal of the Russian ambassador, it was pleasant, constructive and friendly and focused on possibilities of obtaining the vaccine, Beroš said.

It was stressed that procuring the vaccine from Russia was a possibility and that it had to be in line with EU and Croatian regulations, Beroš said.

He noted that the Foreign and European Affairs Ministry has sent a note to the Russian Embassy specifying the 11 documents HALMED needed in order to be able to evaluate the safety of the vaccine.

"I thank our Russian friends for their efforts to help us in the fight against the pandemic because vaccination, along with restrictions, is the main weapon in preventing the spread of the infection," he said.

He noted that it had already been said that HALMED could evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine without the approval of the European Medicines Agency if so requested by Croatian health authorities, in order to secure emergency vaccine imports.

"I believe it is a legitimate government effort to ensure for citizens everything that science can offer, but the main criterion must be safety, efficacy and quality," he stressed.

As for the debt to drug wholesalers, which have limited drug deliveries to hospitals because of their debts, Beroš said that it was a problem that had persisted for decades and that it should be dealt with through a reform of the health system as well as talks with drug wholesalers.

He said the government would do its best to secure an unobstructed supply of drugs for citizens and that it would hold talks with drug wholesalers.

The Croatian health system is financially unsustainable and the crisis year 2020 accentuated the negative financial effects due to an increase in health spending as well as the cost of procuring the COVID-19 vaccine, which amounted to more than two billion kuna last year, said Beroš.

ZAGREB, 3 March 2021 - By this morning 36,013 people have registered online to be vaccinated, which indicates that citizens have recognised that vaccination is an unavoidable step in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic, Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Wednesday.

More than 50% of those who registered for vaccination were from Zagreb, followed by Split-Dalmatia and Primorje-Gorski Kotar counties. There were also 948 phone calls by people interested in getting vaccinated, Beroš told a regular press conference by the national COVID response team.

The head of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ) Krunoslav Capak underscored that in the first three days of this week there were 11.7% more new cases of coronavirus compared to the same period last week.

The share of positive cases among those tested is 10.2% while in the past seven days that was 7.9% and in the past 14 days that share was 7.2%.

Croatia ranks 3rd in the European Union with regard to the incidence rate, with Germany and Denmark recording lower incidence rates while the Czech Republic has the highest rate.

The HALMED medicines agency has received 1,186 reports of side effects - 891 to the Pfizer vaccine, 222 to AstraZeneca and 71 to the Moderna vaccine.

Asked why fairs are not allowed, Capak said that that was being considered and added that it was not the same to have a farmers' market fair in downtown Zagreb and the usual village fairs where pigs are roasted on the spit and the festivities continue until late into the night.

The head of the response team, Interior Minister Davor Božinović, said that measures were being relaxed gradually. He added that the measure to limit the number of people at funerals to 25 had brought about results.

There are some deviations and we are trying to respond to that in situations of funerals or some other organised event. Anyone organising such an event needs to do everything they can to keep it under control, said Božinović.

He added that as far as spontaneous gatherings like those in Zagreb are concerned, he recalled that a decision was adopted yesterday which is not repressive but rather preventative and that messages are being sent that large gatherings are not a good idea.

ZAGREB, 3 March 2021 - Over the past 24 hours, Croatia has registered 747 new cases of the coronavirus infection and seven deaths, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Wednesday.

The number of active cases currently stands at 3,322, including 758 COVID-19 patients treated in hospitals, of whom 68 are on ventilators.

There are 13,777 people in self-isolation.

To date, 1,361,483 people have been tested, 7,292 of whom in the last 24 hours.

Since 25 February 2020, when Croatia registered its first case, 244,205 people have been infected with coronavirus, 5,555 of them have died, while 235,328 have recovered, including 311 over the past 24 hours.

March the 3rd, 2021 - The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has ¨stolen¨ more than one billion euros out of the pockets of the Croatian hospitality industry, with harsh anti-epidemic measures still dramatically limiting the work of such facilities.

As Jadranka Dozan/Poslovni Dnevnik writes, back at the very beginning of this week, the terraces of restaurants and cafes finally came back to some form of life. Although due to space constraints, many working in the Croatian hospitality industry have said over recent days that it is doubtful how profitable this form of re-opening will actually be for them as they may only operate outdoors. Initial estimates suggest however that a solid majority have decided to open their terraces anyway.

The state´s economic measures to preserve jobs are still in force for those who have experienced a large drop in traffic (more than 40 or 60 percent) due to the pandemic, but there was almost zero traffic for those who didn´t have the possibility of delivery for three months.

The latest detailed data from the Tax Administration on fiscalisation clearly shows how deeply the country´s epidemiological measures have left their mark on the turnover of cafes and restaurants and the Croatian hospitality industry as a whole.

From the beginning of December 2020 to the end of February 2021, ie the period in which caterers could only do deliveries (with the possibility of selling food to go as of mid-February) in the activities of preparation and serving of food and beverages, invoices worth 685 million kuna, equal to only 25 percent recorded in the same period a year earlier, were calculated. This time last year, those fiscalised receipts amounted to a very, very different 2.76 billion kuna.

If we look at the time since the appearance of the coronavirus in Croatia and the accompanying epidemiological responses of the National Civil Protection Headquarters, which is now a full year, we can see that when it comes to catering and the wider Croatian hospitality industry, the losses amount to a devastating billion euros.

Since the beginning of March last year, the fiscalised turnover in these activities has reached 9.42 billion kuna, while in the previous one-year period it exceeded 17 billion kuna. The value of reported turnover dropped, therefore, by almost 45 percent. Of course, within that average are also those with a much larger and smaller decline.

According to the data of the fiscalisation system in terms of cash transactions (and in addition to banknote payments, this includes cards, cheques, etc, except for those done via transaction accounts with banks), the second largest absolute decline in fiscalised turnover is expected by other Croatian hospitality industry workers, such as accommodation providers and rental owners.

In the past year, the fiscalised turnover in the accommodation category amounted to 4.56 billion kuna, which is 6.1 billion or 57.3 percent lower than in the previous 12 months.

According to current data, in the transport and storage sector, the fiscalised turnover since the appearance of the novel coronavirus in this country has exceeded 1.62 billion kuna, while the year before it was more than twice as much, standing at a massive 3.26 billion kuna.

More than halved turnover (-51 percent) in the year-on-year comparisons over the past 12 months was also reported by taxpayers from activities related to culture and sports (such as the arts, entertainment and other forms of recreation).

In this group of activities, turnover of less than 690 million kuna was fiscalised, which is a decrease of more than 51 percent when compared to last year's 1.39 billion kuna. Although this week's slight easing of the epidemiological measures also applies to sports activities, the situation in this segment remains more or less unenviable.

Although every double-digit decline is a hard pill to swallow for many enterprise owners, hairdressing and beauty salons, in the second wave of the pandemic managed to avoid putting their keys in their locks, so their decline has been holding at a still concerning but not quite as terrible 22-23 percent for some time now.

In addition to epidemiological rules, the use of their services is also affected by generally reduced movement and social life, which in fiscalised turnover in the past year was reflected in 865 million kuna value of issued receipts when compared to 1.12 billion just a year earlier.

At the same time, the information and communications sector is a category of the business sector in which the negative impact of the coronavirus crisis is barely noticeable. Fiscalised turnover in it fell just one percent; in the past 12 months it amounted to 1.51 billion kuna in total.

The same is true for fiscalisation in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector, in which invoices and receipts worth 1.56 billion kuna were issued over the past year, equal to around 50 million kuna less than in the previous twelve months.

Croatian enterprises operating within the health and social care sector, for example, remained out of pocket by almost half a billion kuna in turnover in these year-on-year comparisons; since last March, they reported a little more than two billion kuna in turnover, and the year before they reported 2.53 billion kuna.

The Tax Administration publishes weekly updated data on the state of fiscalised turnover in the trade sector. However, within this sector, which as a whole is recording a single-digit decline, the results of retail and wholesale differ considerably, as do those of food and non-food retail.

Croatia´s strongest economic branch, tourism, has suffered an unimaginably heavy blow at the proverbial hands of the novel coronavirus and all of the restrictions to life and movement that came with it, and with vaccination delays, new strains of the virus and difficulty in implementing certain decisions, it seems that the Croatian hospitality sector will be waiting a considerable amount of time indeed before anything that might remotely resemble normality returns.

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March the 3rd, 2021 - Spontaneous Zagreb gatherings are set to have closer monitoring placed on them by the National Civil Protection Directorate as rules to try to limit numbers of people in any one place at any one time come in.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the current epidemiological measures in the City of Zagreb will remain in force until the end of March, as was announced on the official website for coronavirus in Croatia (koronavirus.hr), and, among other things, the control of spontaneous Zagreb gatherings in public will be tightened up once again.

At the proposal of the Civil Protection Directorate of the City of Zagreb, some more new epidemiological measures for the area of ​​the City of Zagreb are being introduced. The necessary epidemiological measures referred to in this Decision shall be determined until the 31st of March 2021.

The new epidemiological measures, which still include many of the old rules, are as follows:

- The mandatory use of face masks or medical/surgical masks in all enclosed spaces where public or economic activities are performed, as well as at events, cultural or other programmes, religious and at other social gatherings, if it isn´t possible to maintain a physical distance of at least two metres between people.

- At all social and public gatherings (events, performances, masses, rituals, sports competitions and other social and public Zagreb gatherings) it is obligatory to adhere to all epidemiological measures at all times, as it is with the instructions and recommendations of the Croatian Institute of Public Health.

- The current recommendation is to increase the number of vehicles (both trams and buses) providing public city transport to whatever extent is possible given the capacities of ZET.

- Intensified monitoring of Zagreb gatherings is set to begin.

- The organisers of social gatherings that are permitted and the owners of catering and hospitality facilities are obliged to control the implementation of all current epidemiological measures at these Zagreb gatherings, ie on the premises of catering and hospitality facilities.

- The enabling of the users of accommodation services which operate within the social welfare system (care homes etc.) to go to see their families for more than five days, with the obligation that they submit a negative test for SARS-CoV-2 and that additional precautions when returning to the service provider (the avoidance of contact with other service users for 14 days or something similar) are implemented.

- Users of accommodation services operating within the social welfare system will be allowed to leave such accommodation and go outside to the external spaces owned by the same service provider (such as out in the garden or on the terrace, etc.) with the obligatory wearing of face masks and full adherence to maintaining a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres from others.

- Visits to users of accommodation providers in the social welfare system are allowed only in/on the external premises of the service provider. The duration of such visits will be limited in time and organised according to a predetermined schedule. Both service users and their visitors are required to wear face masks or medical/surgical masks and maintain a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres at all times.

- Visits to the users of accommodation providers operating within the social welfare system are allowed indoors only when, for objective reasons, the visit cannot be organised outdoors (such as in the case of totally immobile service users). In such cases, the duration of the visit is limited in time and organised according to a predetermined schedule, with the requirement that visitors are required to use face masks or medical/surgical masks, as well as disposable PPE.

- Only users who have had COVID-19 within 90 days of the onset of the disease and service users for whom 14 days have passed since vaccination with the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine are allowed to go inside the premises of an accommodation provider within the social welfare system.

- The restriction of the operation of catering facilities that operate on/as part of the premises of the accommodation service provider in the social welfare system, and which do not have a separate entrance to the premises where the catering service is provided, exclusively for users and employees of the service provider.

- The obligation for tenants of accommodation providers within the social welfare system, who are performing activities that are not currently suspended, to organise their work in such a way as to determine the time when services are available only to users, with mandatory prior disinfection of the premises and all equipment.

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ZAGREB, 2 March 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Tuesday that 30,142 people had registered for COVD-19 vaccination on the ministry's vaccination website between 11 am on Monday and 6.30 pm today

He thanked them in a tweet "for the interest expressed and the trust in science and medicine."

Citizens may register for vaccination at cijepise.zdravlje.hr or by calling 0800 0011 or their family doctor.

ZAGREB, 2 March 2021 - In the last 24 hours, Croatia has conducted 7,245 coronavirus tests, and 394, that is 5.4%, have returned positive, the country's COVID-19 crisis management team reported on Tuesday.

In the said period, there have been 11 deaths linked to COVID-19, bringing the death toll to 5,548.

Currently, Croatia has 2,893 active cases of whom 770 are hospitalised patients, including 65 COVID patients placed on ventilators.

Since 25 February 2020 when Croatia recorded its first case of infection with coronavirus, 1,354,191 tests have been performed, showing that 243,458 people have contracted the virus. Of them, 235,017 have recovered, including 382 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

There are now 13,382 people self-isolating in the country.

March 2, 2021 - Great news from Slavonia, as the City of Vinkovci supports hospitality workers with HRK 2,000 and plans to cancel the consumption tax. 

HRTurizam writes that catering, as one of the hardest-hit sectors of the economy, will welcome any aid at the moment. Epidemiological measures and restrictions have left an indelible mark on the numerous lives of employees in the hospitality industry.

To overcome this difficult period, the City of Vinkovci has announced support for catering facilities. The first aid refers to one-time assistance of HRK 2,000 to employees in the hospitality industry, while the city will also cancel consumption tax.

“Caterers are an important part of entrepreneurship in our city, and any job that depends on them is also invaluable. Therefore, we have decided to help our caterers, and HRK 800,000 have been provided for this purpose, and the funds will be distributed so that applicants will receive HRK 2,000 per employee. We hope that this measure of ours, with state aid, will be enough to overcome this situation they are in, against their will," said the mayor of Vinkovci Ivan Bosančić, and added that caterers would continue to pay only one kuna for renting public space, which should make it easier for them to do business during the summer.

Furthermore, the mayor of Vinkovci announced that they had plans to cancel the city consumption tax. It is a proposal that will go to the City Council, and the decision should be applied from the beginning of next year. Until now, the consumption tax rate in Vinkovci was 3%, and the City of Vinkovci had an annual income of around HRK 900,000. 

This news comes after the mayor of Sveta Nedelja, Dario Zurovec, announced on his Facebook profile that all owners of catering facilities and gyms in the city area would receive one-time assistance of HRK 1,500.

"One-time assistance of the Sveta Nedelja City to cafes, restaurants, gyms, and fitness centers in the amount of 1,500 kuna will at least somewhat alleviate the difficult situation in which our fellow citizens find themselves, whose right to work is limited due to epidemiological measures. Vision, ambition, development, and responsible management have resulted in our city setting standards for the whole of Croatia in recent years. I want us to continue to be that – an example for others city," wrote Mayor Dario Zurović on his Facebook page.

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ZAGREB, 1 March, 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said on Monday that the system for registration for vaccination against COVID-19 had been activated at cijepise.zdravlje.hr, and that so far 8,000 people had registered.

"The number of registrations bears witness to the level of awareness among our citizens. Anyone interested in getting vaccinated can apply at cijepise.zdravlje.hr, by dialling 0800 0011, contacting their family doctor or contacting the call centres of county public health institutes," Beroš said in a Facebook post.

"By activating the system, Croatia has become one of the leading countries that use central national platforms for vaccination. I believe we will ensure a successful start of the next round of priority vaccinations, for which we have ensured 240 vaccination stations," he said at a news conference of the national COVID-19 response team.

After registering for vaccination, a person will obtain information on the place and date of vaccination, which will depend on the amount of the vaccine to arrive. Multiple registration will not be possible and the platform will contain information on citizens' vaccination status, Beroš said.

Ministry officials have explained that any Croatian national or person with permanent or temporary residence will be able to register for vaccination.

People with chronic diseases are advised to first register with their family doctors, who will check their condition and determine their place on the vaccination list.

Bedridden persons and persons having difficulty moving should also register for vaccination with their family doctors, who will organise vaccination at their patient's home.

People aged 65 and over will have priority.

Vaccination will be conducted in family doctors' offices, county institutes for public health and mass vaccination stations. Depending on the available quantities of vaccine, the vaccination system will be changed and adjusted to the needs of citizens and medical workers.

More than 742,000 vaccine doses by end of March

A total of 315,870 doses of the vaccine - 179,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 103,200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 33,600 doses of the Moderna vaccine - arrived in the country by the end of February.

By the end of March, Croatia expects another 426,657 doses of all three vaccines, rising the  amount to 742,527 doses.

Croatia has pre-ordered 6.8 million doses of various vaccines against COVID-19.

By 25 February, 205,393 vaccine doses were spent and 146,565 people were vaccinated. The vaccination process is over for 58,828 people. The HALMED regulator by 25 February received 1,074 reports of suspected side effects, of which 868 referred to the Pfizer vaccine, 65 to the Moderna vaccine and 139 to the AstraZeneca vaccine.

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ZAGREB, 1 March 2021, 2021 - Istria has joined the epidemiological "green zone" today after recording a coronavirus incidence rate of 24 cases per 100,000 people over the last 14 days, the director of the Istria County Public Health Institute, Aleksandar Stojanović, told Hina on Monday, citing the latest EU data.

Stojanović said that Istria had seen a considerable fall in the infection incidence rate in recent weeks and a stagnation in the last two weeks, which calls for caution. He noted that Istria County was the last to reopen all schools because the education sector generated mobility and a large number of contacts.

About 8,700 people vaccinated, 2,600 with two doses

Stojanović said that about 8,700 people in Istria had been vaccinated against COVID-19, including 2,600 with two doses. He said that the vaccination was well coordinated and carried out at nine vaccination points across the county.

"We, of course, would be more pleased if we had more vaccine because the public interest is much greater than the number of vaccine doses available," Stojanović said.

The head of the county COVID-19 response team, Dino Kozlevac, said Istria continued to see a positive trend, but expressed concern about the situation in surrounding areas. He mentioned infection cases among staff at the Pula General Hospital, in schools and other sectors, as a result of which many people were in self-isolation.

Kozlevac warned that people had relaxed, increasing their contacts and ignoring the symptoms of the disease. "We are monitoring the relaxation of measures and will see its impact. We are mostly concerned about the situation in surrounding areas, which is not good at all." 

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