Over the past 24 hours there have been 4,257 new coronavirus cases and 15 related deaths in Slovenia, the country's public health institute said on Sunday.

The number of new infections is by 3,250 smaller than a week ago and there are currently 145,272 active cases in the country, almost 10,000 less than on Saturday.

Other epidemiological indicators have been improving as well, and the government has said that it will meet on Tuesday to discuss possible adjustments of epidemiological rules to the current situation.

A total of 774 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, including 135 requiring intensive care. A larger drop in the number of hospitalisations is expected in the course of next week.

If the current favourable epidemiological trends continue and no new variants emerge, forecasts show that the daily number of new infections could drop to around 2,000 in March.

The number of COVID-19-related fatalities had increased by 15 to 6,074 since the start of the epidemic.

A total of 1,262,794 Slovenians have been vaccinated with at least one vaccine dose so far, and 1,215,850 have been vaccinated fully, which is 57.7% of the total population.