STA, 7 January 2020 - As daily coronavirus cases hit a new record earlier this week, the government decided on Thursday that schools and kindergartens will remain closed at least until 18 January. While the majority of restrictions were extended, ski lifts will have to shut down once again tomorrow and there will be some minor changes to entering Slovenia.

It became clear at yesterday's meeting of government and teacher representatives that the government and medical experts were not in favour of reopening schools next week, not even for children in the first three years of primary school, which many had expected to happen already on 4 January.

The exception to the schools closure are special needs children, who went back to school on Tuesday in line with a recent Constitutional Court ruling.

The government intends to continue the dialogue and draft a proposal of a potential reopening model to send it to headteachers for discussion, Covid-19 spokesperson Jelko Kacin said after the government's session.

After closing before New Year's and reopening on 1 January, ski centres will have to close again on Friday for all except professional athletes, who will however need a permit from the Infrastructure Ministry.

Minister Jernej Vrtovec asked skiers and ski lift owners for understanding, saying the epidemiological situation was worrying and so were the projections.

Injuries could put more pressure on hospitals as the number of Covid-19 hospital admissions is expected to rise, the minister explained after the government session.

Vrtovec also pledged the state would help ski lift owners as it had before.

The Association of Slovenian Ski Lifts said it had in a way expected the decision and announced it would ask the government to cover their loss of income.

The ski season in Slovenia is relatively short, ending in mid March or early April, so not working now is "a financial catastrophe", it said in a release.

Also as of Saturday, training will be allowed only for top and professional athletes, and for younger athletes.

No changes were meanwhile made to restrictions applying to movement across municipal borders, which remain in place, or to public transport, which continues to run in the limited fashion.

Also as of Saturday, it will be possible to enter Slovenia with a negative PCR or rapid test, while rapid testing introduced recently at five border crossings with Croatia will no longer be available.

People entering Slovenia will have to produce a negative rapid or PRC test, and while the rapid tests have to be carried out in an EU or Schengen country, the PCR tests could also be carried out in a third country, more precisely in a few labs in Serbia and Bosnia as some other countries, explained Interior Minister Aleš Hojs.

The government moreover removed Finland from the red list of countries, which means that persons arriving from Finland will no longer have to quarantine or produce a negative coronavirus test on the border.

Moreover, an additional exception has been added to the list of those not requiring entry into Slovenia. As of Saturday persons crossing the border for the purposes of education will no longer have to prove they are virus free or quarantine.

There are no changes to the general quarantine rule, which says that a Slovenian citizens can end quarantine after five days with a negative test.

However, as of Saturday, the same rule will apply to those non-Slovenian nationals who have a permanent or temporary residence in Slovenia.

The government also extended the shutdown of non-essential shops and services by another week, that is until 15 January, but added new exceptions to the existing ones.

The list of exceptions will now also include surveying services, cleaning services and pedicure, as well as construction works.

Moreover, museums and galleries will also have to shut their doors again on Saturday, while libraries will remain open for pick-up of pre-ordered books.

STA, 6 January 2020 - A total of 3,354 coronavirus infections were confirmed in Slovenia on Tuesday from a combined 22,194 PCR and rapid antigen tests, the highest daily number of cases yet, as the positivity rate for PCR tests hit a record high, government data show. A further 31 Covid-19 patients lost their lives.

Of the 6,956 PCR tests performed yesterday, 2,602 returned positive results for a positivity rate of 37.4%. In addition, 752 infections were confirmed from 15,238 rapid antigen tests (4.9%), Jelko Kacin, the government's Covid-19 spokesman, told the press.

“Non-Essential” Retail, Services Remain Closed Until 13 January

The daily number of cases from both types of tests is up by 853 from the day before and compares to the previous high of 2,611 logged on 27 October, when only PCR were counted as valid.

Addressing the daily briefing, Nuška Čakš Jager, deputy head of the Centre for Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), suggested the rise in infections in recent days was mainly due to private gatherings and family reunions over the holidays.

She cited case statistics as showing infections among care home residents were decreasing, while cases were rising among other groups of the population, in particularly those aged 25 to 34, and to an extent those between 45 and 54 years of age.

"That, along with the survey among the infected confirms the likeliest reason for the increase in transmissions was private gatherings and family reunions during the holidays," said Čakš Jager.

She said a further increase in infections was expected in the coming few days, but NIJZ was not planning to recommend any new restrictions for the time being as recommendations in place such as those pertaining to social distancing "should suffice to contain the spread of infections if everyone stuck to them".

Kacin said potential new measures or changes to the existing ones could be expected at the government session on Thursday after the government meets in its Covid-19 format in the afternoon today.

After Croatia confirmed a Scottish strain of the novel coronavirus yesterday and several countries, including Austria, reported having confirmed the fast transmittable British mutation, Kacin said an analysis conducted by the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology of the Ljubljana Faculty of Medicine had not yet detected the presence of the British variant in Slovenia.

The number of patients hospitalised with Covid-19 dropped by 16 to 1,177 after 106 were discharged and 114 were newly admitted. The number of those in intensive care units dropped by six to 182, Kacin said.

NIJZ data show Slovenia has confirmed 131,787 coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic with an estimated 21,697 cases still active.

The 14-day incidence of cases per 100,00 residents is 1,032, while the seven-day daily average of cases is 1,703.

According to tracker site covid-19.sledilnik.org, the latest deaths bring the country's death toll from Covid-19 to 2,899.

All our stories on coronavirus and Slovenia

Časoris is an online newspaper aimed at children. Each week we’ll take an article and post it here as a Slovene-English dual text.

Je cepivo varno?

Is the vaccine safe?

Written by Dora Adamič, translated by JL Flanner & G Translate

Ponavadi razvoj cepiva traja 10 let ali celo več. Kako smo torej lahko dobili cepivo proti novemu koronavirusu v enem letu?

A vaccine usually takes 10 years or more to develop. So how could we get a vaccine against the new coronavirus in one year?

Razlogov je več.

There are several reasons.

Vsa zdravila gredo skozi zahtevne postopke odobritve. Ko se prične razvoj cepiva, znanstveniki najprej preučijo virus in raziščejo, kako bi cepivo sploh delovalo.

All medicines go through demanding approval procedures. When vaccine development begins, scientists first examine the virus and investigate how the vaccine would work at all.

Že ta faza lahko vzame več let. Pri novem koronavirusu so jo močno skrajšali.

This phase alone can take years. In the new coronavirus, it was greatly shortened.

Znanstveniki na začetku teste izvajajo na celičnih kulturah, šele nato na živalih, na primer laboratorijskih miškah. Takrat preverjajo varnost in učinkovitost cepiva.

Scientists initially perform tests on cell cultures, and only then on animals such as laboratory mice. They then check the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

Ker pa človek ni miš, sledijo še klinična testiranja na ljudeh.

However, since humans are not mice, clinical trials in humans follow.

Najprej varnost cepiva preizkusijo na manjši skupini ljudi. Če ne zbolijo, študijo razširijo na večje število prostovoljcev. Pri vsaki fazi testiranja se njihovo število poveča in na koncu znaša okoli 30.000 ljudi.

The safety of the vaccine is first tested on a small group of people. If they do not get sick, they expand the study to a larger number of volunteers. At each stage of testing, their number increases and eventually amounts to about 30,000 people.

Hkrati pričnejo preizkušati učinkovitost cepiva; torej, ali ljudi sploh zaščiti pred okužbo. Obenem ugotavljajo, kakšna doza cepiva je najprimernejša.

At the same time, they begin to test the effectiveness of the vaccine, thus whether it protects people from infection at all. At the same time, they determine what dose of vaccine is most appropriate.

Faze kliničnega testiranja si običajno sledijo druga za drugo, tokrat pa so se med seboj prekrivale. To pomeni, da so hkrati testirali učinkovitost in predvsem varnost cepiva na zelo velikem številu ljudi in tako hitreje izpeljali vse klinične študije.

The phases of clinical testing usually follow one another, but this time they overlapped. This means that they tested the effectiveness and, above all, the safety of the vaccine in a very large number of people, and thus carried out all the clinical studies more quickly.

Prav tako znanstveniki niso imeli težav z iskanjem prostovoljcev.

Moreover, the scientists had no trouble finding volunteers.

»Ponavadi izbiranje prostovoljcev traja tedne ali mesece. V tem primeru pa se je to zgodilo čez noč,« pravi profesor Adam Finn, raziskovalec, ki sodeluje pri razvoju cepiva podjeta AstraZeneca v sodelovanju z univerzo v Oxfordu.

“Usually, selecting volunteers takes weeks or months. In this case, however, it happened overnight,” says Professor Adam Finn, a researcher involved in the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Financiranje ni bilo ovira, ker so cepiva razvijala večinoma velika podjetja s podporo mnogih držav.

Funding was not a barrier because the vaccines were developed mostly by large companies with the support of many countries.

Nacionalni inštitut za javno zdravje je prejel eno prijavo neželenega učinka po cepljenju in prijavo smrti, ki je časovno sovpadala s cepljenjem v domu za starejše.

The [Slovenian] National Institutes of Public Health received one report of an adverse reaction after vaccination and a report of a death that coincided in time with the vaccination at a nursing home.

Read more stories and improve your Slovene at Časoris, while all our dual texts can be found here.

STA, 6 January 2020 - The government has extended the shutdown of non-essential shops and services by another week until 13 January. Several existing exceptions will continue to apply, including for hair salons.

According to a release issued last night by the Government Communication Office, the exceptions to the ban include shops selling mainly groceries, personal care and cleaning items.

Those shops are not allowed to sell footwear or clothing, though.

Also allowed to stay open are pharmacies, stores selling medical and orthopaedic equipment, farming shops, petrol stations, financial services, post offices and delivery services.

Produce markets will continue to be open and farms will still be able to sell their produce to consumers.

Also remaining open are newsagents and hair salons, among several other exceptions.

Individual non-medical counselling and therapeutic services will continue to be available.

It will still be possible to pick up goods or food at pick-up points except for alcoholic beverages between 6am and 9pm. Consuming the food in public spaces is not allowed.

Other essential services needed to ensure safety and health are also permitted.

The ban on the sale of pyrotechnics remains in force, mainly to prevent injuries that would require medical attention.

Existing restrictions and precautionary measures continue to apply, including the one limiting the number of customers inside the establishments to one per 30 square metres or a single customer if the premises are smaller. In open-air markets one customer per ten square metres is allowed.

STA, 5 January 2020 - As many as 2,501 people tested positive for coronavirus in Slovenia on Monday, the second highest daily increase to date, as almost 23,500 PCR and antigen tests were performed, the largest number yet, following scaled-down testing over the extended holiday weekend. Another 30 patients with Covid-19 lost their lives, government data show.

Of the 5,966 PRC tests performed yesterday, 1,680 or 28% came back positive, while 821 infections were detected from 17,531 rapid antigen tests, for a positivity rate of 4.7%, show data presented by Jelko Kacin, the government's coronavirus spokesman.

The surge comes after a drop in cases over the extended holiday weekend when testing is as a rule scaled down. Yesterday, rapid testing became available at community health centres and many companies had their staff tested as did schools for children with special needs before reopening for in-person teaching today.

The hardest hit region remains Posavska in the east with a seven-day incidence of 1,037 per 100,000 as of 3 January, followed by SE Slovenia with 797. The national average is 520,9, with six regions below and six above that figure. The 14-day average is 972.

In Brežice, the centre of Posavska region, the hospital is still waiting for the vaccine for its staff and has received no explanation about the delay or when to expect the vaccine, hospital director Anica Hribar said.

Meanwhile, its Covid-19 ward is at capacity. While all ward beds are full, only one of its two ICU ventilation beds is free at the moment, she said, adding that patients would have to be moved if the situation keeps getting worse.

Covid-19 hospitalisations fell by 16 to 1,193 after 112 patients were newly admitted and 108 were discharged yesterday. The number of patients in intensive care units dropped by six to 188.

Since the start of the pandemic, Slovenia has recorded more than 128,000 coronavirus cases. A total of 2,868 patients with Covid-19 have died, according to the tracker site covid-19.sledilnik.org. The site estimates the number of active cases at 20,510.

Data from care homes presented by Kacin show that infections were confirmed yesterday in 51 residents and 30 employees. In the five facilities for people with special needs 14 residents and one employee tested positive.

Labour Minister Janez Cigler Kralj said that a total of 10,036 care home residents and 3,789 staff have recovered from Covid-19 or are still infected, that is out of totals of 18,700 and 9,108, respectively.

He said that 8,116 residents and 1,848 staff at aged-care facilities had already been vaccinated against Covid-19 as the facilities were to get a further 2,199 doses today, with another 701 to be supplied to facilities for adults with special needs.

"Those who haven't been inoculated, because they were infected at the time, will be vaccinated in the coming rounds of vaccination," the minister told the daily morning briefing.

The government last week expanded the requirement for regular rapid antigen testing to home care, social services and social care programmes providers.

Meanwhile, Kacin also provided more information about the death reported to the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) following vaccination. Initial expert opinions indicate that the patient had died of a repeat heart attack and that their death was unrelated to the vaccine.

The person who died was an elderly resident of a care home who decided themselves that they wanted to get vaccinated, the speaker said.

In line with standard procedure, a commission of independent experts will be appointed to look into the case and present its final results to the public, Kacin said.

All our stories on Slovenia and Coronavirus

STA, 4 January 2020 - A number of large companies have started their operations on Monday by testing their employees for coronavirus. Some are performing tests in-house, others are referring workers to health centres, where rapid tests are available throughout the country as of today.

The Slovenjska Bistrica-based aluminium producer Impol has so far tested nearly 760 staff at its headquarters, with just three coming back positive. Impol employs some 1,400 people in Slovenia.

The company said that in the future, rapid testing would be used in individual company units if a positive case is detected. So far, 231 employees have recovered from the virus across the entire group.

TBP, the Lenart-based producer of push-pull bowden cables and plastics, has reserved at the local health centre several time slots when its employees can get tested this week.

The company, which employs some 1,000 people in a region with high Covid-19 incidence, expects the number of infections to increase following the holidays.

Hydro plant operator Dravske Elektrarne Maribor (DEM) started sending its employees for rapid tests in health centres in the previous days. So far none has tested positive. Since the start of the epidemic, 30 of its 240 employees have recovered, while there are currently six active infections.

Ice-cream maker Incom has launched in-house testing which will also be available to employees of other companies, the head of the Ajdovščina civil protection Igor Benko told the STA on Monday.

Cement manufacturer Salonit Anhovo will be testing its staff until Wednesday. First up were production employees and maintenance personnel.

The state-owned power utility Holding Slovenske Elektrarne (HSE) said it has been providing rapid tests since mid-December. Rapid tests are now also available to employees of drug maker Krka.

Adria Mobil, the caravan maker, said more than 1,000 of its employees were tested this morning, this includes the entire morning shift and management. A ten-member team will also test the afternoon shift. So far, 19 people have tested positive.

Container maker Arcont, based in Gornja Radgona, said it would launch testing for employees on Tuesday, while Varis, the Lendava-based maker of prefabricated bathrooms, said it tested all of its 250 employees this morning, with only one testing positive. The company is also testing all others who want to enter its premises.

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.

All our stories on Slovenia and coronavirus

STA, 4 January 2020 - Gyms and swimming pools will reopen on Monday under strict conditions according to a new government decree that also allows younger registered athletes who are members of national teams to train.

Under the rules adopted on 31 December, one person per 50 sq. is allowed in gyms and swimming pools accompanied by a coach, and a five-metre safety distance between individuals must be observed.

In swimming pools, only every second lane may be occupied and the 50 sq. metre rule applies, Mojca Dupona, the head of the Education Ministry's sports directorate, told the STA.

In indoor facilities under 50 sq. metres, one person or household is allowed to exercise.

Unlike for skiing, which opened on 1 January, a negative coronavirus test is not required for gyms and swimming pools.

Professional athletes have been able to train and compete in top-level events for some time despite coronavirus-related restrictions.

The new decree expands the option of training to roughly 1,000 registered athletes in age categories that depending on sport means those under 18 or 19 years of age and those in the under 16 or 15 category.

However, training is allowed only if it is conducted in bubbles and in strict compliance with measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.

Athletes competing in Olympic and world competitions, all professional athletes over 15, and up-and-coming athletes who have achieved top-level results have already allowed to compete for several months now.

All in all, the government decree allows roughly 2,700 athletes to compete, though there is some overlap between individual categories.

The new decree follows weeks of appeals by various associations to let young athletes train and compete, with experts warning that future sporting achievements were under threat due to the long training hiatus.

Overall, professional and recreational sport remain severely restricted, but there are many exemptions that allow training.

In collective sports such as ice-hockey, basketball, football and handball top-level national, regional and international competitions are permitted and large events may be held, though without spectators.

In individual sports national competitions, European cups and large international events may be held.

STA, 1 January 2020 - While Prime Minister Janez Janša has announced that a new shipment of Covid-19 vaccine will arrive in Slovenia next week to largely cover the healthcare sector, a Health Ministry official has called for as massive vaccination as possible to make sure that the state starts normally functioning again.

Visiting the hospital in Šempeter pri Gorici on Thursday afternoon, Janša told the press the new shipment would focus on the most exposed healthcare workers.

He expects that employees in critical infrastructure will be able to get vaccinated in the second half of January.

Health Ministry State Secretary Alenka Forte meanwhile visited the Novo Mesto general hospital on Friday to call for massive vaccination, adding that the highest possible vaccination rate should first be achieved among health workers.

Forte said that "the stronger we are in this vaccination campaign, the more successful we will be in defeating this crisis".

The state secretary noted that in addition to the vaccination, "which must take off and in which 60-70% vaccination rate needs to be achieved in the entire Slovenian population", people must not forget about preventive measures.

STA, 31 December 2020 - Rapid coronavirus testing will be available on five border crossings with Croatia and the Ljubljana airport from 2 January under a government decree adopted on Thursday that also expands the list of quarantine exemptions.

The general rule that passengers from red-listed countries must quarantine unless they produce a negative PCR test no older than 48 hours remains unchanged.

However, at the border crossings Obrežje, Gruškovje, Jelšane, Metlika, Središče ob Dravi and the Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airpot, passengers will be able to take rapid antigen tests and will not have to quarantine if the result is negative.

Third-country nationals who test positive or refuse to get tested will be rejected entry if they are on a non-urgent journey. Others who test positive or do not wish to get tested will have to quarantine.

There will also be five new exemptions to the negative test or quarantine requirement in addition to seven already in place: passengers who have scheduled a health service in Slovenia and plan to return to their country immediately; passengers attending to urgent family matters who return within 12 hours after crossing the border; children under 13 accompanied by adults who are not required to quarantine; athletes and sports staff provided they take a rapid test; and members of rescue services or police when they return within 48 hours after leaving the country.

The red list of countries remains the same. It includes 33 EU or Schengen zone countries, including all of Slovenia's neighbours, and 120 third countries.