As the administration of the third, so-called booster dose of COVID vaccines is about to begin in Croatia, Interior Minister and head of the country's pandemic crisis management team, Davor Bozinovic, said that vaccination offers the best protection against serious illness and hospitalisation.

“We can protect ourselves from the most serious illness, individually and as a community, if we accept the fact that science, not just in this epidemic but in previous ones too, has helped humankind to survive,” he told the press in the eastern town of Nasice.

He added that “those who don’t trust science first of all harm themselves, and then the community.”

He said the recent rise in new cases meant a rise in hospitalisations and that vaccination was the proper defence against that.