Health official Krunoslav Capak said on Tuesday that like other European countries, Croatia too was registering an increase in the number of new Covid cases, which was 12 percent higher than last Tuesday, predicting that there would be no sixth wave of the pandemic.

Capak, who heads the Croatian Public Health Institute (HZJZ), said in an interview with Nova TV that despite the increase in the number of new infections, the number of hospitalizations continued to drop at a significant rate, as did the number of patients on ventilators and the number of fatalities.

“We can say that the fifth wave is waning. Whether the new infections will result in a new increase and sixth wave remains to be seen,” he said, adding that it was difficult to predict if there would be a sixth wave and that what was happening now could be due to the start of school or the new variant of the virus, which now accounts for 25% of all new cases.

“We have had a large number of infections with the Omicron variant in our population and we believe that the infection rate is high enough to protect people from the BA2 variant, which is becoming increasingly dominant in Europe and the rest of the world. Also, 70 percent of the population has been vaccinated, at least against the more serious form of the disease. That has made it possible for us to further relax the restrictions. We believe there will be no sixth wave and that in a short time, with more time spent outdoors, the figures will continue falling,” he said.

Abolishing mask mandate would require very low numbers

Capak said that the current restrictions would not be tightened for the time being, while masks would have to continue to be worn indoors for some time to come, noting that their abolishment would require very low figures.

Covid-19 will be present for a number of years and whether it will turn into a mild seasonal disease is not certain, he said, adding that he hoped the vaccine for the Omicron variant would arrive soon and that efforts would be made to have as many people as possible get vaccinated with it.

He said that he expected the new vaccine to arrive by summer.