Bernard Kajic, an official with Croatia's public health service HZJZ, rejected media speculation that isolation rules for some Covid patients might be cancelled in a statement on Thursday.

State agency Hina cited Kajic as saying that HZJZ has not requested cancelling isolation for Covid patients displaying light symptoms, mainly because of Croatia’s low vaccination rate.

“The epidemiological situation and new protocols have been under discussion for over a week, but most colleagues are not in favour of easing protocols for patients with mild symptoms,” he told reporters after the national Covid-19 task force met with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

Kajic said that the vaccination rate is too low among at-risk groups such as older people, and that the epidemiological situation could deteriorate, “regardless of the results in countries like Austria or Denmark.”

“Cancelling the mandatory seven-day isolation for patients with mild symptoms is just one of the options discussed,” he said, and recommended that people over 60, notably those with chronic health conditions and compromised immune systems, get a fourth vaccine dose. Kajic said there was no evidence suggesting that a fourth dose was beneficial for healthy people under 60.

Head of HZJZ, Krunoslav Capak, said that before issuing recommendations for people over 60 at risk of developing serious conditions and those over 80, it was necessary to wait for the European Medicines Agency to register vaccines against new variants. He joined Kajic in saying that Croatia’s low vaccination rate was the reason why the task force could not consider easing coronavirus rules.

Capak said the epidemiological situation in Croatia was better than during the surge of the Delta variant, given that Omicron is much milder and does not cause serious illness.

“The numbers have been stabilizing over the past two weeks. I think we are at the peak of the Omicron wave. We have fewer deaths, hospitalizations and patients on ventilators than at the peak of the Delta wave,” he said.

He said, however, that it was necessary to increase caution ahead of the new school year.