Despite the improved epidemiological situation in Croatia, the current measures against the spread of Covid-19 will not change until 31 January, the national Covid-19 response team said on Friday.

Even though the incidence rate has fallen to less than 300 new infections per 100,000 population, the measures will remain in force until the end of January, the team told a press conference.

The measures will be analysed again on 1 February, said the team’s head, Minister of the Interior Davor Božinovic.

Božinovic said it was still too early to announce any new measures, adding that the team had never specified the number of new infections that would warrant a change in the anti-epidemic measures.

With regard to the border regime, Božinovic said that the team would amend its previous decision so that “Croatian citizens may stay in neighbouring third countries for up to 12 hours for urgent matters.”

Incidence rate less than 300 per 100,000 population

Public Health Institute head Krunoslav Capak said that the Covid-19 incidence rate in Croatia had fallen to less than 300 per 100,000 population.

“In the first five days of this week we had 3,819 new cases, which is 23% less than the total number in the first five days last week, when it was 4,988. The incidence rate at the moment is below 300,” said Capak.

The incidence rate has been below 300 for the past 14 days and we rank 7th in the EU with a rate of 288.8 while in terms of mortality, Croatia is 20th in the EU with 1,093.6 deaths per one million population, he said.

The rate of positive cases to those tested has also decreased and last week it was 16.4%, he said.

To date 41,532 people have been vaccinated against Covid-19, including 3,772 in Sisak-Moslavina County.

Capak said that antigen tests conducted on workers in aged care facilities showed 389 positive cases out of 13,157 tests taken (3%). A total of 9,491 beneficiaries of aged care facilities were tested and 1,192 were positive (13%).