STA, 29 November 2020 - Slovenia recorded 1,106 new coronavirus cases in 3,644 tests on Saturday, which is on par with the figures seen a week ago. Forty-eight people died, data released by the government on Sunday shows.
The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital increased by 20 to 1,278, of which 195 were in intensive care, one more than the day before. 59 people were released from hospital.
Saturday's test positivity rate was 30%, seven percentage points up on Friday.
Five more deaths were recorded than the day before for a total toll of 1,384 so far. The number of positive tests since the start of the epidemic currently stands at 75,379.
There are presently 20,299 active cases in the country, a 192 increase on the figure reported on Saturday. The 14-day incidence per 100,000 is at 969, an increase of ten, according to tracker covid-19.sledilnik.
Bojana Beović, the head of the government's coronavirus task force, told the STA the results showed that a kind of ceiling had been reached in Slovenia but that the situation was still not improving.
"This also means that lifting the measures would mean 40% of Slovenian hospital beds would be occupied with Covid-19 patients in 14 days, not to speak of the number of deaths. But if we introduce even stricter measure, the question is how much they would be observed, given that even now the impression is that people find it hard to understand and respect the measures. This is showing very clearly in the results that we have," Beović said.
She assessed that after the drop in the test positivity rate on Friday indicated an improvement, the data for Saturday did not bode well for the chances of relaxing the measures.
Beović feels a social agreement is needed about what is important, which is "a decision that medicine actually has little to do with". She urged everybody to do what they can to enable at least "somewhat appropriate Christmas and New Year's holidays".
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