STA, 1 December 2021 - The number of new daily coronavirus infections was down both in weekly and daily comparisons on Tuesday to 2,257 as almost a third of PCR tests came back positive. The National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ) estimates there are around 35,000 active cases in the country. Another 15 people died of Covid-19 yesterday.
The rolling 7-day average dropped further to 2,063, down by 126 from the day before, and the cumulative 14-day incidence per 100,000 residents was down by 96 to 1,664.
The estimated number of active cases fell by about 2,000 compared to the day before to 35,000.
Yesterday's test positivity rate was 32.4%, down by almost 14 percentage points compared to Monday.
According to the government, hospitalisations were down by 27 to 1,101, with the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care dropping by three to 277. 15 people died of Covid-19 yesterday.
The youngest hospitalised patient is 27 years old, as is the youngest patient in intensive care.
Robert Carotta, the Health Ministry's coordinator for Covid beds, said at today's press conference that hospitalisations had apparently reached a plateau that would probably continue until mid-December, while noting that the healthcare system still operated at maximum capacity.
It seems that projections under which the number of ICU patients would reach 320 will not be realised, he said, adding that the "dropping of the daily number of newly-infected people inspires hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Carotta is meanwhile puzzled by what he sees as many Slovenians not being aware of the seriousness of the situation, with almost 300 patients in ICT units becoming an accepted fact.
"At the same time, we live almost normally, we want mass events," he said, noting that an accident with a large number of victims would result in a collapse of the healthcare system.
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