September the 12th, 2021 - Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic, who is also a leading member of the National Civil Protection Directorate, charged with setting out measures against the spread of the novel coronavirus, sat down to discuss all things ''pandemic'' in Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Bozinovic recently appeared on ''Interview of the week'', during which he spoke about the situation with the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Croatia, the excellent tourist season and more.

In the introductory part of the show, the Interior Minister spoke about the increased number of infected people, emphasising that we're now coming to the end of the height of a fantastic 2021 tourist season, which is at the level of record 2019, when we're talking about July and August. Compared to last year, he added, this year there were a lot more people present and activities going on, so infection growth was expected, including the fact that the Delta strain, which is much more contagious, is spreading rapidly and with apparent ease all around the world.

"We aren't at all surprised by the increase in the number of infected people, but we're entering autumn (…) and that's why we are talking all the time about recommendations that always come down to the same - maintaining social distancing, wearing a mask indoors, ventilating indoors and vaccinating people," he told HRT.

When all this is summed up, and when you see experiences from around the world, vaccination against the virus is, he believes, the only way out of the pandemic and the route we must continue to insist on - the more people get vaccinated, the smaller the reservoir is in which the virus will spread.

''Despite everything that has been going on, life mustn't stop, I think that we in the Government and in the Civil Protection Directorate have shown a very high degree of understanding for what people can accept at a given moment. Our measures have never been so strict, nor have they been accompanied by any repressive action by the police, but we can't just let the virus spread without any measures to make the environment more hostile for it in place. The minimum must remain,'' he added.

There will be no new lockdowns, nor will there be any sort of curfew, he said, adding that we have learned that we can calibrate anti-epidemic measures, but the only real protection is vaccination.

President Zoran Milanovic said that "this is all getting very much on people's nerves", and Bozinovic says that this is not a normal situation which we're used to, but the Government has a responsibility on its hands to protect people from the agent as much as possible.

"We have to take certain measures, we have to point out the dangers that are very real - more than 8,300 people in Croatia have died as a result of this virus. The danger is there, we have enough vaccines and everyone in Croatia can protect themselves in the most effective way possible,'' he added.

Some of the arguments against vaccination in this case are that vaccinated people can both spread the infection and become infected themselves. Bozinovic cited the example of the Split hospital, where 93 percent of all those hospitalised were not vaccinated.

"Of course, some vaccinated people get sick, some of them do sadly die, but most of those in that situation who are vaccinated are older, they're people who have various comorbidities, and despite vaccination, they fail to develop a sufficient level of immunity to protect them from SARS-CoV-2,'' Bozinovic told HRT.

Since then, Andrej Plenkovic has come out to state that ''nobody can be forced to be vaccinated'' given the fact that many portals have wrongly interpreted Bozinovic's comments on vaccination. 

"That isn't correct. He was asked about covid certificates, for some reason people thought he was talking about mandatory vaccination, he wasn't. Whoever has published that, please remove it,'' asked Plenkovic.

"We can't introduce the obligation to vaccinate for anyone because we said at the beginning that we wouldn't do that and we're sticking to it. We believe in the intelligence of Croatia's residents. I don't believe that there is anyone in Croatia who doesn't know that covid has existed for more than eighteen months now,'' he added.

He added that the government had done everything in their power to get people to have their vaccinations and that they weren't about to force anyone's hand.

"We can't force anyone to get vaccinated, but at the same time life... has to go on," he said, adding that minimal epidemiological measures are set to remain in place.

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ZAGREB, 11 Sept, 2021 - Croatia has registered 1,162 new coronavirus cases and 14 COVID-19-related deaths in the last 24 hours, the national COVID-19 response team said on Saturday.

A total of 559 infected persons are receiving hospital treatment and 55 of them are on ventilators. Currently there are 6,143 active cases in the country, and 12,937 people are self-isolating.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case was recorded in Croatia, 383,108 people have been registered as having contracted the novel virus, of whom 8,427 have died and 368,538 have recovered, including 696 in the last 24 hours.

A total of 2,649,120 people have been tested to date, including 10,651 in the last 24 hours. 3,326,927 vaccine doses have been administered, with 43.31% of the total population, or 52% of adults, having received at least one dose. 1,647,073 persons have been fully inoculated, which is 48.80% of the adult population.

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ZAGREB, 7 Sept, 2021 - In the past 24 hours, 704 coronavirus cases and 10 deaths have been registered in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Tuesday.

There are currently 4,199 active cases, including 518 patients who are hospitalised, of whom 57 are on ventilators.

Currently 8,862 persons are self-isolating.

Croatia has registered 378,726 coronavirus cases to date, including 8,385 deaths and 366,142 recoveries, of which 527 in the past 24 hours.

To date, 2,607,201 persons have been tested for the virus, including 10,077 in the past 24 hours.

To date, 42.98% of the total population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, including 51.61% of adults, 48.40% of whom have completed vaccination.

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ZAGREB, 5 Sept, 2021 - A traditional annual pilgrimage organised under the auspice of the Croatian parliament to the Catholic shrine in the town of Ludbreg was held on Sunday, with the Bishop of Zrenjanin, Laszlo Nemet, leading the service that was attended by a few thousand believers.

During the sermon, the bishop said in his message to parliamentary deputies who attended the mass and this votive pilgrimage, that both the present and the future of the country was their responsibility.

In reference to 1739 when plague had spread in the region, which prompted the then Croatian parliament to keep its vow to protect the nation from plague and therefore had a chapel built in Ludbreg and the present-day COVID-19 pandemic, the bishop said that there were also many challenges today such as COVID-19  disease, unemployment, the departure of young people from Croatia. And also there are many positive things, the bishop said, underscoring the positive vibrations among the faithful.

Several thousand pilgrims today flocked the northern town of Ludbreg that houses a unique Eucharistic shrine in Croatia, founded by a papal bull in 1513.

In attendance at today's rites was Deputy Parliament Speaker Željko Reiner, who among other things, called for vaccination of citizens against coronavirus "as the sole rational, efficient and civilisational achievement in the fight against contagious diseases."

He recalled that Pope Francis had also urged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

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ZAGREB, 5 Sept, 2021 - In the last 24 hours, Croatia has conducted 9,174 coronavirus tests, and 5.8%, or 539 of them, have turned out to be positive, and eight COVID-19 patients have died, bringing the COVID-related death toll to 8,370, the national coronavirus crisis management team said on Sunday.

Currently, there are 4,431 active cases of the infection in the country, and 485 of them are receiving hospital treatment, including 52 patients who are on ventilators.

Since 25 February 2020, when Croatia reported its first registered COVID-19 case, more than 2.59 million tests have been conducted, showing that 377,838 people have caught the virus. Of them, 365,037 have recovered to date, including 552 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

Since the start of its vaccine rollout, Croatia has administered nearly 3.3 million doses of vaccines, and 42.9% of the total population, or 51.51% of adult citizens, have been vaccinated.

According to the statement, 1,555,960 people have been double vaccinated plus 74,299 who have received a single-dose of the Janssen vaccine, and that makes up 48.30% of the adult population.

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ZAGREB, 4 Sept, 2021 - In the last 24 hours, Croatia has conducted 10,271coronavirus tests, and 8.5%, or 882 of them, have turned out to be positive, and seven COVID-19 patients have died, bringing the COVID-related death toll to 8,362, the national coronavirus crisis management team said on Saturday.

Currently, there are 4,452 active cases of the infection in the country, and of them, 469 are receiving hospital treatment, including 59 patients on ventilators.

Since 25 February 2020, when Croatia reported its first registered COVID-19 case, more than 2.58 million tests have been conducted, showing that 377,299 people have caught the virus. Of them, 364,485 have recovered to date, including 579 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

Since the start of its vaccine rollout, Croatia has administered nearly 3.3 million vaccines, and 42.85% of the total population, or 51.45% of adult citizens, have been vaccinated.

To date, 48.25% of the adult population have fully been immunised.

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ZAGREB, 1 Sept, 2021 - Education and Science Minister Radovan Fuchs said on Wednesday that he was satisfied with the share of teachers vaccinated against coronavirus, and said that their immunisation would continue.

Currently, 57.5% of the teaching staff in primary and secondary schools have been given at least one shot against COVID-19 and in tertiary education this percentage is higher, 64.5%,  the minister said.

He underscored that there was no alternative to vaccination and promised to continue insisting on having as many teachers as possible inoculated.

It is a fact that the unvaccinated get sick on a large scale and that symptoms exhibited by  vaccinated people are considerably milder, he added.

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ZAGREB, 1 Sept, 2021 - Croatia has registered 805 new cases of the coronavirus infection over the past 24 hours, as well as four COVID-19-related deaths, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Wednesday.

The number of active cases currently stands at 3,632, and there are 440 COVID patients in hospitals, including 59 on ventilators, which is six more than on Tuesday.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case of the disease was recorded in Croatia, a total of 374,803 people have contracted the novel virus, of whom 8,338 have died and 362,833 have recovered, including 383 in the last 24 hours.

There are currently 7,423 people in self-isolation.

To date, 2,554,090 people have been tested, including 10,094 over the past 24 hours.

As at 31 August, 3,271,036 doses of vaccine have been administered, and 42.54% of the total population, or 51.10% of the adult population, have been inoculated.

A total of 1,726,531 persons have received at least one dose, while 1,614,792 of them have been fully vaccinated (1,544,505 persons received two doses plus 70,287 received the single-dose Jannsen vaccine), so 47.85% of the adult population have been been fully vaccinated.

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ZAGREB, 31 Aug, 2021 - In the last 24 hours, Croatia has conducted 9,610 coronavirus test and 7% of them, that is 668, have turned out to be positive, while the number of COVID-related death toll has risen by three to 8,334, the national COVID-19 crisis management team reported on Tuesday.

Currently there are  3,214 active cases of the infection with coronavirus, including 423 hospitalised COVID patients.

The crisis management team reported today that there were 53 patients on ventilators, two fewer than on Monday.

Since 25 February 2020 when Croatia reported it first registered case of the infection with that novel virus, 2.54 million tests have been conducted. To date, 373,998 people have tested positive, and of them 362,450 have recovered, including 465 recoveries in the last 24 hours.

Since the beginning of the vaccine rollout, 3,264,851 vaccine doses have been applied, and 42.46% of the total population, or 51% of the adult population have got vaccinated.

To date, 1,611,262 citizens have been fully inoculated.

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ZAGREB, 29 Aug, 2021 - In the past 24 hours, 377 new coronavirus cases and one COVID-19-related death have been registered in Croatia, the national COVID-19 crisis management team said on Sunday.

There are currently 3,331 active cases, including 391 hospitalised patients, of whom 51 are on ventilators.

Currently 7,404 people are self-isolating. A total of 2,530,602 people have been tested, including 9,570 in the last 24 hours.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case of the disease was reported in Croatia, 373,191 people have been infected, of whom 8,325 have died.

A total of 361,535 people have recovered, including 479 in the last 24 hours.

50.88% of adult population vaccinated

To date, 3,257,094 vaccine doses have been administered, with 42.36% of the population having been vaccinated, including 50.88% of adults.

One dose has been administered to 1,718,925 persons while 1,606,701 persons have been fully vaccinated -- 1,538,169 have received both doses and 68,532 have received the single-dose Janssen vaccine -- which is 47.62% of the adult population.

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