A total of 1,642 new coronavirus cases and 43 related deaths have been recorded in Slovenia in the past 24 hours, the government said on Wednesday as the weekly number of infections has continued to fall for the fifth day in a row.

In the past 24 hours, 6,350 tests were conducted and 25.8 percent of them returned positive. The number of new infections was lower than on Wednesday, when 2,107 new cases were reported.

On Wednesday evening, the government extended the state of epidemic for another 30 days, but did not decide on measures that would be in place during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. It will do so in the coming days, government spokesman Jelko Kacin told a press conference in Ljubljana.

Currently, 1,229 people are being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals, about 20 fewer than on Wednesday, and 208 of them are in intensive care. A total of 116 people were released from hospitals on Wednesday.

Since the start of the epidemic in the country in early March, 102,043 people have been infected with the novel virus and 2,233 have died. There are 20,660 active cases. The average number of daily infections over the past seven days is 1,442.