STA, 7 July 2020 - Slovenia's count of active coronavirus cases has increased to 205 after 23 of the 1,325 tests for Sars-CoV-2 came back positive on Monday, fresh official statistics show. The total case count stands at 1,739.
Twelve patients are hospitalised with Covid-19, one more than the day before after one patient was discharged and two more were admitted yesterday, government data show. None of them need intensive care.
According to the tracker site covid-19.sledilnik.org, most of the new cases were recorded in Cerknica (5) and Maribor (4) with 11 further municipalities recording one or two cases each.
With Cerknica apparently a new hotspot, Radio Slovenija reported that Covid-19 had been transmitted at a private party with some 30-40 people aged around 30.
The local authorities fear there are more infections in the municipality since, following National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) instructions, the party goers who had no signs of infection were allowed to go to work, except those working in healthcare and education.
The municipality has already advised locals against using playgrounds, benches and sports facilities to prevent the youth, who seem to be the most affected group in the second Covid-19 wave in the country, from socialising.
One of the latest cases in Slovenia was also a resident of the Vipava care home, discovered from 81 tests there. This brings the number of infections in that outbreak to 11 residents and seven staff members, Martin Kopatin, the facility's director, told the STA on Tuesday.
All 108 residents of the Pristan home for the elderly and 45 staff have been tested, but tests will be repeated.
Five of the 11 infected elderly residents have been moved to the Ljubljana UKC hospital's department of infections diseases. Only one of them has some health problems, while the others feel fine.
The remaining six residents are isolated in the care home and other residents need to remain in their rooms.
Meanwhile, Mario Fafangel, the chief epidemiologist at the NIJZ, told today's press briefing that a resident of a small Kras care home unit in Postojna had also tested positive.
Slovenia has not recorded Covid-19 related fatalities for over a month now when the death toll reached 111. A large majority of those fatalities were at homes for the elderly.
