A total of 169 people tested positive for coronavirus as 1,404 tests were performed in Slovenia on Sunday, while two people died, government spokesman Jelko Kacin said on Monday. Despite the numbers being lower than in the previous days, the share of positive tests remains high, at 12%.
A total of 149 patients were in hospital, 26 requiring intensive care, on what was a Sunday with the biggest increase in daily cases since testing began in March.
This brings the total number of cases to 8,832, with as many as 3,444 being active infection as this moment. A total of 169 people have died.
Talking to the press, Mateja Logar of the Infectious Diseases Clinic, said that elderly with underlying illnesses are no longer the only Covid-19 patients in intensive care. Younger, fit and healthy people have also been admitted for intensive care treatment.
Kacin said that hospitals have managed to respond to the increase in those requiring hospitalisation, but the numbers are expected to go up in the coming days.
Logar said that UKC Ljubljana, the country’s biggest hospital, is getting ready to set up an additional Covid-19 ward, most likely at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, which was already the case in the spring. Patients of the department of Infectious Diseases without Covid-19 have meanwhile already been moved off-site, to the Peter Držaj Hospital in the Šiška borough.
Data from tracker site covid-19.sledilnik.org show that 30 of the latest infections were health staff and 36 were aged care home residents and three staff at those facilities.
One of the emerging hotspots is a care home for blind, visually impaired and aged residents in Škofja Loka, north-west of Ljubljana, where 18 residents have been infected.
The facility’s director, Silva Košnjek, said they were running out of space to isolate everyone, and were working with the local authorities to find an appropriate space to move the infected outside the home to prevent further transmissions.
The first infection entered the home via a patient who got infected at Jesenice hospital in late September, but they were not forewarned by the hospital so the resident moved freely around the home.
The Jesenice hospital said it did not know of the infection because the woman was discharged after they detected the first infection with another patient.
Reports of new infections are coming from many other care homes across the country, including at the Predvor facility in the north-west, which has seven residents and two staff infected.
Care homes in Slovenj Gradec in the north and Celje in the north-east also reported their first infections.
On Sunday, infections were confirmed in 65 municipalities. Most of the cases, 34, were recorded in the capital Ljubljana, where 0.197% of the residents are actively infected.
Črna na Koroškem in the north remains the municipality with the highest per capita infection rate, at 1.097%, followed by nearby Mežica (0.674%), Šentjernej in the south-east (0.629%) and Prevalje in the north (0.573%).