The mortality rate for COVID-19 patients placed on ventilators at Zagreb's Dubrava Clinical Hospital is 68 percent, Health Minister Vili Beros said at a press conference of the national coronavirus response team on Wednesday.

“Today, on the 296th day of the pandemic, unfortunately 92 of our fellow citizens have died, and this indeed is a large number. Twenty-four patients died at Dubrava Hospital, of whom eight were on ventilators,” Beros said, noting that the mortality rate among COVID-19 patients on ventilators was 68 percent.

Beros said that 65 of the patients on ventilators who died today had three or more underlying chronic diseases. He said that the mortality rate among patients without comorbidities who were on ventilators was 16 percent.

“Clinicians think that such a large number of deaths is the result of large daily numbers of new cases of two or three weeks ago which exceeded 4,000. If the number of new cases continues to fall, about three weeks from now we can expect the number of fatalities to start decreasing,” the health minister said.

Responding to reporters’ questions, he said that at this point there was no reason to suspect that patient numbers provided by Dubrava Hospital were not true.

Citing a report filed by the hospital today, Beros said that 457 COVID-19 patients are being treated there and that the hospital is operating at 73.12% capacity. The number of patients admitted in the last 24 hours is 45 and 73 patients are currently on ventilators. He said that the ventilator occupancy rate is 82.02%, adding that five new patients have been placed on ventilators and 31 have been discharged in the last 24 hours.