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.

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.

July 15, 2021 - Not the best news for the peak season - the Croatian coast is no longer green on the ECDC corona map! 

The Croatian coast is no longer green on the new corona map of the European Union published by ECDC, reports Index.hr.

The entire Adriatic part of Croatia is now in orange.

The ECDC map is updated every week. Colors for individual areas are determined by a combination of the number of confirmed cases in the past 14 days per 100 thousand inhabitants and the percentage of the population tested. The latest map was released today.

Updated ? maps are online!

These maps aim to support the @EUCouncil recommendation on travel measures in the EU during #COVID19 pandemic.

Color-blind friendly map in next tweet.https://t.co/CcBVx6B0o5 pic.twitter.com/K2oaO7oqzq

— ECDC (@ECDC_EU) July 15, 2021

It is the most important coronavirus map in the European Union, and it is considered a reference because EU member states adopt measures and determine the conditions for entry from a particular country according to the color that the country has on the ECDC map.

The vast majority of Europe is still in the green zone. The Croatian coast, parts of Greece, part of the Netherlands, part of Sweden, Ireland, and the south of France are now marked in orange.

Spain, Portugal, a small part of Greece, part of Denmark, and part of the northeast of the Netherlands, as well as Luxembourg, are red. 

Parts of Spain, as well as a very small part of the Netherlands, are dark red, symbolizing the worst epidemiological situation.

The headquarters announced that 139 new cases in Croatia were recorded in the last 24 hours, and the number of active cases in Croatia today is 653.

Among the active are 110 patients on hospital treatment, of which 9 patients are on a respirator.

The headquarters also announced that no deceased persons had been registered in the last 24 hours.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centers across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.