The national COVID response team on Friday adopted a decision on mandatory COVID certificates for public, state, and local government institutions with the message that the main aim is to protect the healthcare system so that it can be accessible to all patients.

As of Tuesday, 16 November employees in public, state and local government premises will have to provide an EU digital certificate upon entry. Anyone who has not been vaccinated or has not recovered from COVID will have to be tested for coronavirus, the national response team told a press conference on Friday.

Anyone entering those premises will have to show their certificates to the authorised person and that refers to beneficiaries as well, Deputy Prime Minister Davor Bozinovic explained. Checks will be conducted with the assistance of COVID apps.

Anyone refusing to be tested or provide a certificate will not be allowed to enter, he underscored.

The decision does not have a set time limit and is also issued as a recommendation for other (private) employers to do the same.

“The aim is to protect the health system which can be best achieved if people are vaccinated because vaccines mean protection against serious illness, hospitalisation and death. This does not mean that people who are vaccinated cannot be infected or infect others but they will not end up in hospital and we will have a functioning health system,” said Bozinovic.

Passengers in public transport do not require certificates but they are required to adhere to other epidemiological measures, he explained.

Anyone without a COVID certificate will have to be tested at least twice a week and that is why 6,500 testing stations have been opened including family health care centres and pharmacies.

Impossible to forge COVID certificate

Representatives from the AKD company and Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) presented the EU digital COVID certificate system, saying that to date 2,799,799 had been issued while 2,297,445 had been applied for.

The Covid go app serves to save digital certificates and with each change in status regarding vaccination, a new certificate is issued with a validity of 12 months.

It was said that it is impossible to forge a COVID certificate because the QR code is signed and when checking the certificate it is necessary to also provide some identification. Any possible misuse of certificates is a criminal act.

Croatia has had 42.8% of positive cases which is several times more that the test positivity rate of  16.3% since the start of the pandemic.

Last week there were 36% more people infected than the week before and the highest number of new cases were registered in Medjimurje and Dubrovnik-Neretva counties. The most favourable situation is in Vukovar-Srijem and Istria counties.

Of the hospitalised patients, 73% are not vaccinated, 77.3% of patients on ventilators are not vaccinated, 73.6% of those who died were not vaccinated, the head of the Croatian Institute for Public health,  Krunoslav Capak informed.

Nine of the younger people who died were aged between 25 and 49 not one was vaccinated, he added.

Health Minister Vili Beros said that in addition to vaccination it is important to continue to adhere to epidemiological measures and that is why some countries with a high percentage of vaccination are once again introducing restrictions.

He confirmed that new medicines are  in the offing, and Croatia will do all it can to join other EU countries to procure those medications.