Croatia's coronavirus surge continues with 3,053 new cases reported

"About 28 percent of tests came back positive, 938 patients are receiving hospital treatment, including 131 who have been placed on ventilators," Beros said. "The 56 percent increase in daily cases compared to last Wednesday is a call for much needed caution. The pool of non-vaccinated people,l which is still too large, gives the coronavirus considerable space to keep spreading," he added.

On Wednesday, Croatian authorities had reported 3,162 new cases, the highest single-day case count in seven months.

In the same meeting, Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said that "one in four elderly persons over 65 years of age has not been vaccinated yet, and we are talking about 238,000 people." By Wednesday, 55.4 percent of Croatia's 3.3 million adults over 18 years of age had been vaccinated. The figure includes 1,489 people who had received a third shot, which Croatian authorities had recently introduced for some categories. He also warned that the death count "might soon exceed 9,000."

Beros said that non-vaccinated people account for close to 71 percent or all cases that needed hospital care over the past week, and 86 percent of all cases severe enough to require ventilators. The largest number of new cases was reported among younger age groups, in children and teenagers aged 9-19, and those aged 40-49, while the median age was 36.