Slovenia registered 2,092 new cases of Covid-19 in the past 24 hours and 17 deaths linked to the infection, and the government said on Wednesday that it did not consider any relaxation of  restrictions that have been in force for the past three months just yet.

“We will have to live with the current anti-epidemic measures until late in the spring,” Prime Minister Janez Jansa told state television.

Considering the current rate of vaccines being delivered, immunisation of 70% of the population could be achieved in mid-summer, he said.

Conditions have still not been obtained to relax epidemiological measures to reopen schools and the weekly rate of new cases needs to be brought down to 1,350 cases and the number of hospitalised patients to fewer than 1,200, he added.

The number of Covid patients has stabilised recently however it is still oscillating even though there are fewer hospitalised patients.

“There are currently 1,244 patients in hospital treatment, or 44 more than yesterday,” the government’s spokesman Jelko Kacin said on Wednesday.

Of that number 206 are in intensive care, which is 14 more than yesterday, he added.

The average number of new cases is still above the threshold to start relaxing restrictive measures, said Kacin.