In the past 24 hours 517 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Slovenia as well as 33 COVID-19 deaths, its government said on Monday.

In said period 493 infections have been confirmed in 1,664 PCR tests and another 24 in rapid antigen tests.

The number of active cases is 18,537 and the daily average new infections over the past seven days has been 1,288.

Currently 1,179 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, including 205 in intensive care.

The death toll has reached 2,565, the Health Ministry said.

Vaccination against the virus began on Sunday, in nursing homes and hospitals. Another 6,825 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are expected by the end of the year. The government has said that 1.2 million people, about 60% of the population, could be vaccinated in the first seven or eight months of 2021.