ZAGREB, Dec, 2020- Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ) head Krunoslav Capak said on Monday that Croatia last week registered a twofold increase in new COVID-19 cases and that the country’s epidemiological situation was the worst in the European Union.
According to Capak, from December 7 to 13, Croatia registered a 7.5% increase in the number of new infections compared to a 3.7% increase in the week before that.
The incidence rate in the entire Croatia is high, but the differences between counties are considerable, with Medjimurje County reporting the highest and Dubrovnik-Neretva County the lowest incidence rate.
We are in the last place in the EU when it comes to the number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days, Capak said. As for the mortality rate, we are in the 16th place of the 27 EU countries, with 628.5 deaths per a million inhabitants.
Capak also said that today people in self-isolation account for 40% of the new infections.
“This shows that the system of searching for contact has not fallen apart despite operating with difficulties due to a large number of new infections,” he added.
Vaccination programme by end of week
Asked about the number of health workers that want to be vaccinated, Capak confirmed the unofficial data that slightly more than 50% of health workers want to, adding that they are still collecting data on that.
He stressed that the vaccination campaign had already started, and by the end of the week the government would adopt a vaccination programme although it was not yet known when the vaccines would arrive and be distributed.
In the coming days, science conferences on vaccination will be organised, and there will also be a media campaign.
Asked about people who will not be able to get vaccinated, the head of Zagreb’s Dr Fran Mihaljevic hospital for infectious diseases, Alemka Markotic, said that that would be apply to people allergic to a vaccine ingredient.
She added that they expected there would be very few such cases and that people should get informed on their own about their allergic reactions to medicines.
Croatia reports 1,472 new coronavirus cases, 65 deaths in last 24 hours
Croatia has registered 1,472 new coronavirus cases and 65 infection-related deaths in the last 24 hours, the national coronavirus response team reported on Monday morning.
A total of 2,857 infected people are receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19 and 284 of them are on ventilators. Currently, there are 22,769 active cases in the country and 54,042 people are in self-isolation.
Since February 25, when the first case was confirmed in the country, 177,358 people have been infected with the novel virus, 2,705 of them have died and 151,884 have recovered, including 3,673 in the last 24 hours.
