Serbia on Tuesday saw a new surge in coronavirus infections, with more than 5,400 new cases and 39 fatalities registered.

In the past 24 hours 18,528 samples were tested and 5,471 returned positive. There were 7,205 Covid-19 patients in hospitals, and of them 276 were on ventilators, more than on Monday, the country’s health ministry said.

Belgrade continues to be the hot spot with 1,406 new cases but there are several other cities with three-digit numbers of new cases.

The State Secretary at the Health Ministry, Mirsad Djerlek, warned that the British variant of the coronavirus in Serbia was causing serious problems to the health system and that medical workers were at the end of their tether.

Asked about a possible relaxation of restrictions considering announcements that could be heard lately from politicians and economists, Đerlek said that there was no room for that, that hospitals were filled to capacity and that much more seriousness and solidarity was required to defeat the virus.

He said that by the end of the day on Tuesday more than one million Serbians would have received the second dose of the anti-Covid-19 vaccine.

Đerlek noted that owing to mass vaccination Serbia had avoided having more than 100 fatalities on a daily basis at present. He said that the country was receiving sufficient quantities of the vaccine and that by the end of May 2.5 million citizens could be vaccinated with both doses.

Since the start of the epidemic more than a year ago, 3,406,642 samples have been tested and 595,489 infections have been confirmed. A total of 5,270 people have died and the mortality rate currently stands at 0.88%.