July 12, 2020 – The director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Krunoslav Capak, spoke about COVID-19 in Croatia and the record 140 new cases on Saturday.
Index.hr reports that the number of currently active cases in Croatia on Saturday is a total of 1088. Among them, 124 patients are in hospital, of which three are on a ventilator. One person died.
Capak commented on the record number of new cases in Croatia as a guest of Dnevnik N1.
“It’s not exponential growth, it would be more new patients every day, but these are big numbers, and unfortunately, we have an increase we don’t want and we didn’t expect it to be like that. By opening activities, we knew we would have bigger numbers, but these are big numbers now and we are worried about that. We ask the citizens to adhere to the measures because it is obviously not working as it is now,” Capak said, adding:
“The virus is circulating, but I would not say that the situation is spiraling out of control. Our epidemiologists are working 24 hours a day. The situation is getting worse and worse, and we need to find, enter, and determine all contacts of these 140 people. It is hard work, and we have a total of a hundred epidemiologists. They are running out of energy.”
He said they were discussing how to make things easier and when to call for help.
Capak said there are new measures from Monday and they are not thinking about adding others. “The number of people at public gatherings in other countries is smaller than in our country. Since we are a tourist country, we were too liberal in prescribing new measures. That is why we brought new measures for larger gatherings. As with nightclubs, we introduced controls and they are no longer a source of infection. We are now introducing the supervision of various gatherings, and we have tightened measures and recommendations.”
Commenting on the restrictions Istria is considering, he said that they are discussing it, but nothing has been agreed yet.
“These are EU rules, I can only comment on epidemiological measures. Of course, Croatian citizens can be infected in other countries and bring an infection, but they are also subject to instructions at the borders. Every citizen who crosses, regardless of whether they are from the EU or not, receives instructions at the border on how to behave for the next 14 days, where it is prescribed to avoid contact, wear masks … It’s just a small step under self-isolation,” said Capak answering the question about border crossings and noted that everything is a matter of personal responsibility:
“We had a great collaboration with the citizens, and I hope it will be the same in the future.”
We are monitoring the situation with the import of the virus, he pointed out, and said that the measures have now only been tightened. Capak added that the number of border crossings had been significantly reduced.
“We are continuously discussing the gradual introduction of masks into the lives of citizens. We are careful in that, we are gradually moving from the place where the risk is greatest, and then to places where there is not so much risk of infection,” said Capak, and commented on fines for those who do not wear masks:
“As the Headquarters, we are against repression because it causes revolt among citizens, especially if it is not precisely and fairly elaborated. We will conduct extensive education on the benefits of wearing masks. In some cultures, wearing masks is a normal thing for any respiratory infection. We have to activate so that the citizens understand that they benefit from wearing masks,” concluded Capak.
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