Nearly 2,000 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday
Ljubljana - A total of 1,964 people tested positive for coronavirus in Slovenia on Tuesday, an increase of 7% from the same day a week ago, data from the Health Ministry shows.
The number of patients hospitalised for Covid-19 as their primary condition surpassed a hundred, of which 14 in intensive care and 88 in regular wards. Altogether 334 infected patients were in hospitals, including 19 in intensive care.
One patient with Covid-19 died.
Data from the National Institute of Public Health puts the 7-day average of new daily cases to 1,645, up by 21 in a day, as the 14-incidence rate per 100,000 of the population rose by six to 1,070. An estimated 22,648 people are actively infected.
Infectologist Matjaž Jereb said that, like the daily number of new infections, the number of patients at Covid wards in hospitals has plateaued and that it would most likely start to drop in the second half of August.
While the official figures put the number of infected persons to above 22,000, the head of the intensive therapy department of the Infectious Diseases Clinic of the UKC Ljubljana hospital said the number was actually at least 3-4 times higher.
This represents pressure on the healthcare system, Jereb said, adding that unvaccinated people dominated the structure of hospitalised Covid patients, as the share of vaccinated patients is between 35% and 40%.
Asked whether additional measures, other than masks in healthcare institutions and recommended use in enclosed spaces, are needed, he said that the current measures were sufficient at the moment.
"If people followed all the recommendations in good faith, things would be more manageable than they are," Jereb said, while also commenting on the news that mandatory quarantine for infected persons will be abolished in Austria on 1 August.
"This move can be understood as economically effective, while by no means medically acceptable," he said, adding that he did not support the move in any way as the "basic rule" was that sick people should not walk around.