The Slovenian government on Thursday tightened coronavirus restrictions in its western region bordering Italy due to increase in new Covid-19 cases.

Speaking at a press conference in Ljubljana, government spokeswoman Maja Bratusa said that the situation “in the Coastal-Karst region is markedly worse than in others” and that restrictions which had been in force throughout the country during what the government called “red phase” of the epidemic would be re-introduced there again.

This means that as of Saturday all non-essential stores over 400 square meters in size will be closed. Some customer-based services will also be closed while in others employees will be regularly tested for coronavirus. It remains unclear whether the government would re-impose a curfew on any non-essential travel between municipalities.

The region is in western Slovenia on the border with Italy and includes the country’s Adriatic coastline and its largest coastal town Koper which is about 20 kilometres south of Italy’s port city of Trieste. The region has some 115,000 residents out of Slovenia’s total 2m population.

Slovenian officials also said that due to daily changes in reported cases, the country is unlikely to enter the so-called “yellow phase” of the epidemic anytime soon, i.e. reopening schools for all grade levels and no curfew.

Over the past 24 hours, 852 new coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Slovenia, with 18.7 percent of tests coming back positive, and seven Covid-19 deaths. The number of those hospitalized patients remains stable and the average weekly number of new infections is now at 763.