Slovenia's health authorities reported 1,558 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours on Wednesday - an increase of nearly 50 percent from Tuesday, and the largest single daily increase in the last two months. Another seven Covid patients have died, authorities said.

In the last 24 hours, 7,206 PCR tests have been performed, of which 1,558 returned positive, or 21.6 percent, the government announced on Twitter on Wednesday.

The average daily number of new cases in the past week has for the first time exceeded 1,000, reaching 1,001, and the number of active cases has  increased to 13,031. Five hundred people infected with Covid-19 are in hospital care, including 112 in intensive care units. The total death toll to date now stands at 4,047, according to Health Ministry data.

The marked deterioration in the epidemiological situation comes a day before an 11-day lockdown is scheduled to come into effect, on 1 April, which the government had announced to contain the third wave of the epidemic, largely attributed to the increased spreading of the British strain of the virus.