Health Minister Vili Beros on Friday told the cabinet that the number of new COVID cases had decreased by 32% compared to last week and that there were 21.2% fewer hospitalised patients and 27.8% fewer patients on ventilators, however the death rate is still high.

The World Health Organisation has recorded similar trends in other EU countries, particularly those with lower vaccination rates, said Beros.

The level of inoculation among the elderly is still unsatisfactory and the introduction of new measures focuses on the elderly and infirm in those municipalities where inoculation is less than 40%, and there are 109 of them.

“They will be in the focus of our activities. We wish to reach all those unvaccinated citizens in an effort to save their lives and health and keep the health system functioning to the maximum,” said Beros.

He underscored that the Omicron variant is resulting in fewer hospitalised patients than preceding variants, however , he said, Croatia still has a high fatality rate as most of those people who died of or with COVID were not vaccinated.