ZAGREB, Aug 25, 2020 - The government's Scientific Council on Tuesday recommended introducing new epidemiological measures in places where there are more infected persons in order to reverse the current negative trends ahead of the new school year.

"The number of new infections has been growing over the past two weeks and we have concluded that that was a risk that we accepted when we opened the border for the tourist season, but now we agree that it is time again, in places with an increase in the number of new infections, to take measures to reduce those numbers and have as few infections as possible before the start of the school year," epidemiologist Branko Kolaric said after a session of the Scientific Council.

The new epidemiological measures will be made by the national COVID-19 response team, and the Scientific Council has only advised it on what should be done, he said.

"Our advice is to introduce new measures regionally, locally and depending on the current epidemiological situation. There will be no horizontal measures for the entire country, in the communities with a larger number of infections masks will have to be worn indoors and awareness of the importance of physical distancing will have to be raised," said Kolaric.

He added that due to a shortage of epidemiologists additional personnel would be hired to help primarily in the search for the contacts of infected persons.

Asked about the Russian vaccine against the coronavirus, Kolaric said that he knew very little about it and that he believed it was an adenovirus vaccine. He stressed, though, that on the list of the World Health Organisation there were six vaccines in an advanced stage of research and that he was optimistic in that regard.

The head of Zagreb's hospital for infectious diseases "Dr Fran Mihaljevic", Alemka Markotic, said that one should prepare for the autumn and winter months when more severe cases of the disease and greater pressure on the health system were expected.

"Nobody expects any major lockdown but one should be able to cope with the situation and find the right measures," Markotic said, concluding that so far, Croatia had been dealing well with the pandemic.

As for the tourist season, she said that there had been no significant number of infections in hotels and camping sites and that there were around 300 entries on international platforms with data on infected tourists.

"There has been no explosion of the infection so far but now that people are returning to their workplace and children start school, one should be aware of the need to adhere to epidemiological measures and be disciplined," she said. 

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ZAGREB, Aug 17, 2020 - The head of Zagreb's Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Alemka Mrkotic, said on Sunday that getting children back to school at the start of the new school year this September would pose no heightened health risk.

Markotic told the national broadcaster HRT that the examples of the countries that kept schools open also during the peak of the epidemic of coronavirus proved that.

She said that pupils with respiratory infections should be kept at home.

As for the current COVID-19 infection numbers, the epidemiologist admitted that those figures would be considered a serious issue if they had appeared in winter. 

Furthermore, 90% of those who have now caught the virus do not need hospital treatment and a mere 1% of these cases are on ventilators, Markotic said calling for taking the whole situation into consideration rather than focusing only on the new cases' statistics.

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.