Ljubljana - The curve of coronavirus infections has turned sharply up in Slovenia, driven by the omicron variant and Christmas gatherings. A total of 1,829 new cases were reported for Thursday, an increase of 57% on the week before and the highest daily figure since early December.

The positivity rate of PCR tests hit almost 37%, up by a full 12 percentage points over last week. Notably, however, the number of rapid tests performed rose by a fifth on the week before, to just shy of 100,000.

As Slovenia gears up for the coming surge of omicron cases, hospitals appear in relatively good shape. The overall number of patients was down by 21 to 553 this morning, less than half of the fourth-wave peak, with the number of ICU cases down by seven to 179, compared to almost 300 during the late-November peak.

Six patients died, government data show.

Data by the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) show the 14-day case notification rate per 100,000 people rising by 29 to 827 and the rolling seven-day average of new daily cases up by nearly a hundred to 1,377.