Ljubljana - Slovenia's curve of coronavirus transmissions keeps rising with another 981 people testing positive on Monday to drive the 7-day average up to 829. The growing trend is also reflected in Covid-19 hospitalisations, which rose back above 500. Nine patients with Covid-19 died, government data show.

Marking a rise of 7% from the same day a week ago, the latest cases were confirmed from 5,022 PCR tests, for a positivity rate of 19.5%. In addition 47,037 rapid antigen tests were also performed.

The number of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 rose by 13 to 507 after 72 patients were admitted and 50 were discharged yesterday. The number of patients in intensive care rose by two to 96.

With Covid-19 hospitalisations rising above 500, all hospitals have been designated Covid hospitals again, Robert Carotta, the national Covid bed coordinator, told Tuesday's press briefing.

This means means the hospitals in Brežice and Izola will have to start admitting Covid patients again and other hospitals will have to increase Covid bed capacities.

The cumulative 14-day incidence per 100,000 residents rose to 515 and the 7-day to 276.

In response to the rising trend, the government is expected to revise coronavirus restrictions on Wednesday following consultations with the Covid-19 advisory team, which discussed a potential tightening of measures on Monday. No official information is expected before tomorrow.

Under the valid colour-coded coronavirus strategy, Slovenia is now in tier orange of restrictions, the third highest. Tier red begins when the 7-day average of new confirmed cases and hospitalisations rise above 1,000.

The new rise in transmissions has been blamed on the spread of new, more virulent coronavirus variants, in particular the UK mutation.

Maja Ravnikar, director of the National Institute of Biology, told the Covid briefing analysis of waste water had shown 30% presence of the UK variant in Ljubljana in the first week of March, which is up from 2-4% in the first half of February.

The South African variant had not been detected in waste water as yet.

In one of the coronavirus outbreaks, 30 pupils and four staff have tested positive in a primary school in Sežana in the south-west since last week, as a result of which 18 out 39 classes at the school have been sent home to self isolate and will continue learning remotely. More testing is planned for today.

The commercial broadcaster POP TV reported yesterday that a total of 284 classes are quarantining country-wide.

Slovenia has so far reported 207,300 coronavirus cases with an estimated 10,857 active infections, data from the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) show.

The death toll from Covid-19 had reached 4,258 by Sunday.

NIJZ data show that 187,288 people have already received their first dose of a vaccine against Covid-19 and 104,103 have received both jabs.