Croatia's health authorities reported on Friday that 1,467 new cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in the country over the previous 24 hours, in addition to 11 new Covid-related deaths.

The rolling seven-day case count now stands at 9,438 – or on average 1,348 per day, a slight increase from 1,341 per day in the seven days prior, and nearly double from a month ago. The 14-day case count is now 18,825, or 1,344 cases per day, up from the previous two-week period, when it averaged 1,136 cases per day.

Both figures are now at highest levels since early to mid April.

On Friday, the rolling seven-day death count was 90, up from 55 deaths reported in the week prior, and highest weekly death rate since late March. There are currently 10,516 registered active cases in the country, including 671 Covid patients in hospital care – the highest number of hospitalized patients since late March.

To date, Croatia has registered 1.18 million coronavirus cases and the total pandemic-related death toll now stands at 16,288. This amounts to an average of more than 18 deaths per day after the initial case had been detected in Croatia on February 25, 2020.

Some 2.31 million Croatians have received at least one shot of any Covid-19 vaccine to date, which health authorities say translates to 59.6 percent of the country’s entire population. This is the calculation released by health authorities which project the current population size at 3.88 million, in line with the results from the 2021 census results released in January.

This figure includes close to 2.24 million Croatians who have been fully immunized against the disease, which translates to around 68.8 percent of all adults, as estimates say that there are currently some 3.22 million Croatians aged 18 and above living in the country.

Even though the vaccines are widely available and free of charge, the interest in vaccines among pandemic-fatigued Croatians is reportedly very low. On Thursday, authorities reported that only 216 vaccine shots had been administered in the entire country, including just 33 first-time doses. Booster shots have been available since December 2021, but authorities do not include these statistics in their daily reports.

The daily numbers come from official reports which only account for cases confirmed by PCR tests and which are reported daily to the World Health Organization and other international agencies. Positive results detected via rapid antigen testing (RATs), including at-home tests, are reported and tracked via a separate registry. These are sometimes leaked to the local media who conflate these with officially confirmed figures, creating considerable discrepancies in their reporting.

Due to the low intensity of reported cases, the government scrapped nearly all pandemic rules in April, which included ending nearly all face mask rules and also Covid passes which were required for using any public administration service. However, masks are still required in some public areas, mainly in hospitals and in retirement homes. All pandemic-related travel restrictions for foreign nationals have also been scrapped in early May.