Over the past 24 hours, there have been six COVID-related deaths in Slovenia, and 478 cases of the coronavirus infection have been confirmed, with 18.2% of tests returning positive, the Slovenian government said on Sunday.

The epidemiological situation continues to improve after some epidemiological measures were relaxed last week after a 11-day lockdown, while the number of patients in hospitals is stagnating and remains relatively high.

There are 631 patients in hospitals, 153 of whom are in intensive care units, the number of active cases has dropped below 12,000, and the 7-day rolling average of daily infections has decreased to 795. To date, there have been a total of 4,159 COVID-related deaths, the health ministry said.

According to latest data, 17.7% of the population has been vaccinated so far. The National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) said it expected to be able to inoculate more than half of the population aged 60 to 70 by the first days of next week, after more than a half of the population over the age of 70 had already been vaccinated.