The director of Zagreb's Infectious Diseases Hospital said on Wednesday that the rise in new coronavirus cases in Croatia was no different than elsewhere in the world, but added that it was not only about the number of those infected but also the fact that 10% of those hospitalised die.

“We have analysed the situation with hospitalised patients. In the Infectious Diseases Hospital, about 10% of those who have been hospitalised to date have died. Everyone must take that into account. The main component is not just the number of those infected,” Alemka Markotic told press after a Scientific Council meeting in the government.

A higher number of those infected in the summer was much less dangerous than it is in the winter because now these higher numbers result in more people with a more serious form of the disease who end up in hospital, which increases the chance that they will also end up on ventilators and die, she said.

“It’s not good to bargain as to which mortality is sufficiently acceptable or unacceptable. Every life is valuable and every life is worth fighting for.”

Regarding the record numbers of new cases, she said the Scientific Council’s position was that they were not unexpected and that what was happening in Croatia was neither different nor new in comparison with the rest of Europe and the world. She added, however, that it was important to find ways to prevent a very high exponential growth.

Markotic said no one favoured overly tight measures or a strict lockdown as they believe people are struggling mentally and the effect would not be as it was during the spring.

Gradual measures which can help, which people can accept, will be adopted, she said, adding that the national COVID response team would try to present them as well as possible.

Markotic underlined the importance of everyone in society behaving responsibly, including politicians and public figures. She warned that contradictory information which was not based on expertise, knowledge and experience could damage the healthcare system and the situation not just in Croatia, but other countries too.

Vaccine might be approved by year’s end

Virologist Andreja Ambriovic Ristov of the Rudjer Boskovic Institute appealed to people to understand that the measures which had been adopted were good and said that masks did indeed protect.

“Globally, we are seeing that we have more and more people infected every day. We were lucky with a long summer and now, when colder weather is slowly coming, what we predicted would happen is.”

Speaking of vaccines and research, she said many of them were in the third stage of trials and that it was realistic to expect a vaccine to be approved by year’s end. She added, however, that this did not mean that the vaccination of the entire population would begin then.