Monday’s tally of new coronavirus infections in Slovenia reached 1,499 as 5,756 tests were carried out. Five Covid-19 patients died in hospital, while there is no data yet for care homes, coronavirus spokesperson Jelko Kacin told the press on Tuesday.
The number of active infections was at 16,347 on Monday, when 85 new patients were admitted to hospital, data on the national tracker site shows.
There are 560 coronavirus patients currently in hospital, up from 523 the day before. As many as 86 are in intensive care, up four, of whom 57 on a ventilator, the same as the day before.
Over the past two weeks, 780 people per 100,000 residents fell ill with coronavirus, up from 727 yesterday, according to covid-19.sledilnik.org.
Since the first coronavirus case was confirmed in Slovenia on 4 March, almost 25,580 infections have been confirmed.
The tracker site shows that 256 deaths have been recorded since the start of the epidemic, but it also says that only five people died yesterday.
The latest data presented at today’s news conference is meanwhile 13, so the final death tally should be 264.
Kacin said the situation at hospitals was serious, with the number of hospitalisations doubling in slightly more than a week and expected to keep rising for a while.
UKC Ljubljana, the largest hospital in the country, has 140 Covid-19 patients, of whom 29 in intensive care, said Mateja Logar from the Clinic for Infectious Diseases.
The hospital has been expanding the number of its coronavirus beds, but they will eventually be forced to stop expanding as they are bound to run out of staff, she explained.
She said that Covid-19 patients are in hospital an average 10 to 14 days, but several weeks in intensive care.
Logar urged people to help stop the spread of the virus by observing all the restrictive measures, just like they did in spring. “Only in this way will be make it.”
Patients in intensive care are 65 years old on average, the youngest being only 42.
A 33-year-old patient is being treated in an ordinary Covid-19 department, while there are also two children and a pregnant women who need air support to breathe.
