"The fourth wave of the coronavirus epidemic is well underway, but the situation is less stressful than a year ago," state agency Hina cited Jutarnji List daily as saying on Friday. The paper reported that although the number of positive cases is now double compared to late 2020, there are half as many people in hospital care.

“Nearly two years have passed since coronavirus took over the world, and the current situation is less stressful than a year ago as there are fewer patients in hospitals even when the number of infections is high… Vaccines have partly reduced the threat, but some people do not trust the vaccines, which also remain unavailable to part of the poor, which has allowed the virus to further complicate our lives with new strains,” Hina cited Jutarnji as saying.

Publicly available data compiled by the Public Health Institute HZJZ shows weekly trends of infections since the outbreak, including the number of patients in hospitals, those on ventilators, and age groups that were at highest risk in certain periods. There are currently twice as many positive coronavirus cases, but there are slightly fewer patients in hospitals than in November last year.

“The only constant is the high death rate. Severe cases are often fatal for patients. Ventilators give a chance of survival, but only of 20 to 30 percent, so the arrival of vaccines was important because they prevented severe cases of Covid-19 and higher death rates,” Hina cited Jutarnji as saying.

Hina did not cite any numbers to back these claims.

“Persons over the age of 50, who last December, during the second wave of coronavirus infections, got infected the most, have now been inoculated, and currently coronavirus targets persons aged 18 to 40 or 50, which proves that it is necessary to vaccinate as many citizens as possible. That is also the reason for the lower number of hospitalized patients because infected persons are younger,” Hina cited Jutarnji as saying.