Speaking about the age groups affected by the coronavirus, head of Croatia's public health service HZJZ, Krunoslav Capak, said that 41 people under the age of 20 - including 17 children younger than 9 - had tested positive for the coronavirus so far, meaning that they make up less than 5 percent of the country's reported cases. All of them have showed only mild symptoms of the disease.

He added that “there is no pronounced spread of the virus in Croatia,” compared to some of its neighbouring countries, adding that the infection is “under control.”

Capak told state television HRT on Tuesday evening that this can be seen in roughly unchanged numbers of new cases over the last few days, adding that the curve showing the cumulative number of cases over time is on a “mild ascending line.”

To date, Croatia reported 867 confirmed cases of infection since the outbreak started, including 77 new cases in the 24 hours prior to the regular daily crisis briefing on Tuesday morning, a daily increase of just under 10 percent. The total includes 6 deaths.

Over the last two weeks, Croatia reported a double-digit number of new cases every day. Over the last seven days up to and including Tuesday, the country’s health authorities reported 446 new cases, an average of about 60 per day.

Neighbouring Slovenia, has population half the size of Croatia’s 4 million people, reported 802 cases by Tuesday afternoon, including 15 deaths. These include 67, or little over 8 percent, in people aged 24 or younger.

At the same time, Bosnia, which has a population of around 3.5 million, reported 419 cases including 13 deaths.

Also on Tuesday, Serbia, which has a population of around 7 million, recorded 115 new cases, a daily increase of nearly 15 percent, to bring its total to 900 cases, including 23 deaths.

Commenting on the small island of Murter and the coastal town of Biograd, where clusters of infections have been identified recently, Capak said that that in both places the situation has been stabilised.

Capak also pointed out a “mild descending trend” in the number of new cases in capital Zagreb, saying that the 5.3-magnitude earthquake which hit the city on March 22 did not seem to have caused an uptick in infection among Zagreb’s residents.

Shaken by the most powerful quake the city has seen in 140 years, thousands of residents had spilled into the streets in panic, raising concerns that the event may have caused them to violate social distancing measures imposed earlier to contain the outbreak.

Zagreb, which accounts for about a fifth of Croatia’s entire population, reported 362 cases of infection, or around 40 percent of the nation’s entire case load.

Experts say that the incubation period – the time between contagion and visible symptoms – for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, may take 2-15 days, but on average lasts 5-6 days.

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