Ljubljana - The number of new coronavirus cases spiked even further in Slovenia on Tuesday, exceeding all daily counts by far, with as many as 12,286 coronavirus infections recorded. 63.2% of PCR tests came back positive, according to the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ).

So far, the highest daily count of infections was confirmed on Monday, when 8,681 tested positive.

Labs in the country are overwhelmed and can no longer analyse all samples in the same day. On Monday, more than 8,000 samples came in for analysis at the Institute for Microbiology and Immunology and 2,300 were left for the next day.

Health Ministry State Secretary Franc Vindišar said in a morning talk show on public broadcaster RTV Slovenija today that yesterday's caseload had also been too much to handle.

He expects the peak of the fifth wave of the epidemic to be reached next week, on 26 January. After that hospitalisations are most likely to rise.

The protocol for PCR testing has been changed due to excessive number of cases as of today, so only vulnerable groups are being automatically sent to a PCR test while others with symptoms need to take a rapid test or self-test first.

This is expected to raise the PCR test positivity rate in the coming days.

The 7-day average of daily cases increased by 694 to 7,575 today and the 14-day incidence per 100,000 population is up by 390 to 3,982.

According to the government data, hospitalisations were down by ten to 566 Covid-19 patients today, 151 of whom require intensive care, which is four fewer than yesterday. Eight people with Covid-19 died on Wednesday.

The youngest hospitalised Covid-19 patient is 14 years old, and the youngest patient in intensive care is 30 years old.

The NIJZ has estimated that there are now 84,262 active cases in the country, up by 8,215 on the day before.