Covid Cases are up by nearly a thousand from last Saturday

Croatia reported 4,547 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, nearly one thousand more than a week ago. 

Another 30 people have died from Covid-19. The test positivity rate has climbed to 37%. Hospitals are treating 1,330 patients, 175 of whom are on ventilators.

New Covid cases in several counties have climbed into the triple digits. The City of Zagreb, a county in itself, reported 936 new cases, Split-Dalmatia County 498, and Primorje Gorski Kotar County 391 cases.

Split Clinical Hospital has 94 Covid patients and 22 of them are on ventilators. The head of the Split-Dalmatia County Covid task force, Damir Gabrić, warns that the situation is very serious.

"The epidemic is at its peak. We urge everyone to get vaccinated. As we can see from the experiences of other EU countries, the vaccine is the only solid prevention measure,” Gabrić said.

The general hospital in Osijek has opened up additional beds for Covid patients, says the head of the Osijek-Baranja County Task Force, Mato Lukić.

"We have available beds now, but of course, we cannot that will be the case in the future if things continue down this road. Therefore, we need to be really careful. In the previous waves, we had times when our hospitals were overflowing with patients. Nobody want's that to happen again,” Lukić said.

Family doctors are also feeling the pressure of the surging pandemic. Dr. Mirela Marković from the Croatian Family Medicine Association says doctors are overrun with phone calls and emails from patients.

"The pressure is on. We should not forget that doctors also have other patients with chronic conditions. Along with this spike in Covid cases, we are about to start administering flu shots next week. I'm afraid of the pressure that could happen on Tuesday, following the upcoming holiday, from patients with Covid and those who need the flu shot,” Dr. Marković said.

Family doctors have been ordered to call all of their 65 and older patients to urge them to get vaccinated if they have not done so already. Family doctors say they have their hands full already and do not have time for this additional task.

"If I am seeing sick patients, examining them, prescribing therapies, advising them, offering all of the care that family doctors should to their patients, I really don't know when I would have time to call patients who have refused to get vaccinated for the past 10 months," Dr. Marković said.

The surge in cases has also created long lines at testing sites. In Zagreb, public health authorities are adding on Tuesday another temporary testing at the Zagreb Fairgrounds to take some of the pressure off testing sites downtown.