Addressing a government session, Pleković said that he had instructed Justice and Public Administration Minister Ivan Malenica, Health Minister Vili Beroš and Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović to see which of the relevant laws should be amended to introduce fines for those defying rules introduced by the COVID-19 response team.
He recalled that the introduction of COVID-19 certificates did not make vaccination compulsory but made it possible for vaccinated persons to get in contact with unvaccinated persons who have been tested while enabling unvaccinated persons with a test to function normally, either at work in government or public institutions or as users of their services.
He added that this was a social compromise that required only taking a benign swab.
“I do not see why taking a simple swab should pose a problem for anyone, it turns out the protests are not because of vaccination but because of testing, because of a swab that takes a second. It’s very unusual if that poses a problem to such a large number of people,” he said.
He added that he was not sure that swabbing is what bothers the protesters and the people inciting protests.
“Nobody can convince me that swabbing is the problem, notably to those who incite protests or defiance against COVID certificates and who have been vaccinated,” he said.
He recalled that COVID-19 had caused direct financial damage in the amount of HRK 40 billion and 10,000 deaths, noting that the government would insist on the COVID certificate mandate and amend the relevant laws to punish non-compliance.
As for people inciting protests, he said that if they have political ambitions, they should say so openly, “instead of pretending to be freedom fighters after they have received a booster shot.”
More than 100,000 people vaccinated with first dose over past week
Plenković also presented encouraging data, saying that over the past seven days, as many as 104,000 people had received the first vaccine dose while 100,000 had received a booster shot.
He said that the ongoing, fourth wave of the pandemic had hit Europe hardest and that in the past two weeks the number of new infections had been on the rise in 22 of the 27 EU member countries, with increases ranging from 45% to 180%, while Croatia had seen a 58% increase in the number of new cases.
He expressed sympathy with the families of people who had died of COVID-19, noting that the number of fatalities exceeded 10,000.
“It is a fact that the number of fatalities could and should have been lower if more people had got vaccinated,” he said, adding that the infection was the most dangerous for people who had not been vaccinated while those who died but had been vaccinated were largely elderly people and people with underlying medical conditions.
