STA, 4 January 2020 - A total of 744 new cases of coronavirus infections were recorded in Slovenia on Sunday from a combined 2,671 tests, while 35 persons died of Covid-19, the latest figures released by the government show. Hospitalisations were slightly up compared to Saturday.
A total of 2,041 PCR tests were performed, resulting in 634 new cases for a positivity rate of 31.1%, which is more than two percentage points up compared to Saturday. [Ed. The headline positivity rate is based on all tests, see next paragraph]
The positivity rate for rapid antigen tests was also up by a percentage point to 17.5%, as 630 such tests were performed and 110 cases confirmed.
There were 1,209 people in hospital for Covid-19 yesterday, up by 36 compared to Saturday. The number of those in intensive care was up by four to 194, while 38 persons were discharged from hospital on Sunday.
Slovenia has so far logged 2,838 deaths, while 19,525 cases remain active, up 1.8% from a day earlier, according to data tracker Covid-19 Sledilnik.
Meanwhile, the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) said it had been notified of one case of a side effect following vaccination against Covid-19 and of one death coinciding with inoculation in a care home.
The confirmation comes after the allegation of a person dying after receiving the jab had circulated in social media.
The NIJZ said it had notified the Health Ministry of the reported development. The ministry will call a meeting of a vaccination commission to look into the case, and will notify the public on the findings.
Care home residents across the country were inoculated on 27 December and there have been reports that some have tested positive since.
The Črneče care home in Koroška in the north said today that 36 of what are now 65 infected residents tested positive after being given the jab. About half of some 260 residents there had already recovered from the disease before the latest outbreak.
Similarly, an aged care facility in Ajdovščina in the west, which confirmed its first infection only a week ago, said 32 residents were now infected, 27 of whom had already received the first dose of the vaccine.
"All the infected who had been vaccinated beforehand are displaying relatively mild symptoms or even none, their condition is stable," the Ajdovščina home director Tanja Stibilj Slemič was quoted as saying by the regional civil protection centre.
Commenting on the reports of infections among the immunised care home residents at the morning press briefing, Health Ministry State Secretary Marija Magajne opined the residents had likely been infected before getting the jab but were not showing it yet because they were still in the incubation phase.
NIJZ data as of 3 January show that Slovenia has confirmed 125,858 coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. In the past week about 4,000 fewer cases were recorded than the week before.
Earlier, the government's coronavirus spokesperson Jelko Kacin told the press that the number of rapid tests carried out at Slovenia's border crossings had not yet been integrated into the official figures.
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