Ljubljana - Slovenia logged 11,810 new coronavirus cases on Monday, a drop of 7.5% from the same day a week ago but on fewer PCR tests. The figure is likely to increase today as positive rapid tests are added to the cases picked up from PCR testing.

Government data shows 14 more patients with Covid-19 lost their lives yesterday, to put the total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 6,342, a figure reconciled by the Health Ministry weekly with data from the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ).

A total of 887 patients with Covid-19 are hospitalised as of this morning, including 132 in intensive care, which is 69 more and six fewer, respectively, than a day ago.

However, more detailed data published by the Health Ministry shows 391 patients were actually hospitalised due to Covid at regular wards and 116 in ICUs, with the rest hospitalised for other reasons but also infected with coronavirus.

According to NIJZ, the 7-day average of new daily cases dropped by 144 from the day before to 13,911. The 14-day notification rate per 100,000 people was still up by 149 to 8,328. An estimated 175,504 people are actively infected.

Of the 15,585 PCR tests, 76% returned positive results. More than 124,000 people were screened with rapid antigen tests. From today onwards, positive antigen tests will be recognised as confirmation of infection. On Monday a week ago 1,698 PCR tests were performed.

Mateja Logar, the head of the government's Covid advisory group, said that Slovenia was close to the apex of the fifth wave of the epidemic, but there would be no releasing of the restrictive measures for the time being.

If the situation starts to calm down, it will be possible to start talking about lifting measures in 14 days, she said, noting the latest increase in hospitalisations.

While some countries have already lifted measures, Logar said that the situation in Slovenia would not allow for this, and that the countries that had lifted measures had much higher vaccination rates.

She hopes that a discussion on lifting some measures could be started in a fortnight. "Given the most optimistic forecasts and the current figures, we can hope that we are close to the peak or perhaps already at the peak [of the epidemic]," Logar added.