STA, 28 October 2020 - A total of 2,605 infections were confirmed in nearly 7,500 Covid-19 tests in Slovenia on Tuesday. Both figures mark the highest daily values since the start of the epidemic. The previous daily record was just short of 2,000 and was reached last Friday.
The week-on-week comparison shows that the pace of increase may be starting to slow down. While weekly increases of 100% were the norm in the past two weeks, on Monday and Tuesday they were at 87% and 73%, respectively.
Almost 35% of all tests came back positive on Tuesday, the highest rate so far. The 14-day cumulative number of Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population, an EU-wide benchmark, is currently at 872, according to Jelko Kacin, the government's Covid-19 spokesman.
The number of people in hospital with Covid-19 rose to 612, as 113 were newly admitted on Tuesday and 54 discharged from hospital.
The number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care rose by 12 to 99, with 57 needing a ventilator to breathe.
Seven people died in hospital yesterday and another seven at nursing homes, putting the national death toll at 278, according to the covid-19.sledilnik.org tracker site.
Seven people died in hospital yesterday. Kacin said fatality data from nursing homes was not yet processed, which means the final figure for the day cannot be determined yet.
There are now an estimated 18,269 active cases in the country out of a total of 28,208 infections since the start of the epidemic.
Kacin said that an average delay of two days is occurring in the notification of individuals who tested positive, as epidemiologists cannot keep up with the large rise in new infections.
Asked about potential new restrictive measures, he announced the government would decide on what is a very likely "prolongation of a number of measures" on Thursday.
On the same day a meeting will take place at the European level and the government will decide on further steps after it. Individual measures will be presented on Friday.
Kacin announced a decision on whether children return to schools after this week's autumn holidays would be taken by the government on Thursday evening at the latest.
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