Croatia's health authorities reported on Thursday that 1,583 new cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in the country over the previous 24 hours, in addition to 15 new Covid-related deaths.
The rolling seven-day case count now stands at 6,725 – or on average 960 per day, a drop from 1,177 per day in the seven days prior. The 14-day case count is now 14,968, or 1,050 cases per day, about 30 percent down from the the previous two-week period, which averaged 1,358 cases per day.
Although caseloads seem to be falling, deaths are increasing. On Thursday, the rolling seven-day death count was 96, up from 88 deaths reported in the week prior. Daily deaths have been in the double digits for nearly three weeks now. There are currently 8,185 registered active cases in the country, including 616 Covid patients in hospital care, 23 of whom are on respirators.
To date, Croatia has registered 1.19 million coronavirus cases and the total pandemic-related death toll now stands at 16,461.
Some 2.31 million Croatians have received at least one shot of any Covid-19 vaccine to date, which health authorities say translates to 59.6 percent of the country’s 3.88 million population. The figure includes about 2.24 million Croatians who have been fully immunized against the disease, which translates to around 68.8 percent of Croatia’s 3.22 million adults above the age of 18.
Even though the vaccines are widely available and free of charge, the interest in vaccines among pandemic-fatigued Croatians is still very low. On Wednesday authorities reported that only 202 vaccine shots had been administered in the entire country, including just 36 first-time doses. Booster shots have been available since December 2021, but authorities do not include these statistics in their daily reports.
The daily numbers come from official reports which only account for cases confirmed by PCR tests and which are reported daily to the World Health Organization and other international agencies. Positive results detected via rapid antigen testing (RATs), including at-home tests, are reported and tracked via a separate registry. These are sometimes leaked to the local media who conflate these with officially confirmed figures, creating considerable discrepancies in their reporting.
Due to the low intensity of reported cases, the government scrapped nearly all pandemic rules in April, which included ending nearly all face mask rules and also Covid passes which were required for using any public administration service. However, masks are still required in some public areas, mainly in hospitals and in retirement homes. All pandemic-related travel restrictions for foreign nationals have also been dropped in early May.
