More than 35,000 tests conducted on Monday to find 1,652 infections

Ljubljana – Slovenia recorded another 1,652 new coronavirus infections on Monday, when more than 35,000 tests were conducted amid mass testing of teachers ahead of partial school reopening.

Currently, 1,157 people are in hospital, 16 fewer than the day before, and 43 fewer than a week ago. The number of patients needing intensive care remained level at 192 compared to the day before.

A hundred new patients were admitted to hospital yesterday, while 91 patients were discharged and 27 new deaths were reported. Two persons died in hospitals and the rest in care homes, according to the government’s Covid-19 spokesperson Maja Bratuša.

Yesterday, 1,149 new cases were confirmed in 4,700 PCR tests (positivity rate of 24.4%). Because of testing of teachers ahead of partial reopening of schools and kindergartens, as many as 30,392 rapid tests were also conducted to detect 503 new infections for a positive rate of just 1.7%, said Bratuša.

In 20,673 rapid tests among teachers, 278 infections were confirmed by 9pm last night, the Health Ministry said. The positivity rate was thus 1.3%.

Some teachers were tested this morning, as 53,306 pupils from the first three grades of primary school returned to school and 74,630 children returned to kindergartens, according to Education Minister Simona Kustec.

The National Institute of Public health (NIJZ) assesses the number of active cases in the country at 18,058.

The national 14-day incidence per 100,000 residents dropped to 853. The 7-day average of new daily cases of infections decreased further, from 1,232 to 1,227, according to NIJZ.

“This means that in line with the government exit strategy we are still in the red tier, as the government noted at its last week’s session,” Bratuša said.

Looking at the regional situation, Bratuša said that based on yesterday’s data only seven of the nine regions where lifting of some restrictive measures had already started are still strictly in the red tier, while in two regions, Obalno-kraška in the south west and Zasavska in the east the situation deteriorated.

Meanwhile, in the Koroška region in the north, the situation improved so much that it could enter the orange tier if the situation on the national level allowed for this.

According to NIJZ data, Slovenia has so far recorded 159,812 coronavirus infections. A total of 3,406 patients with Covid-19 have died, data from the tracker site covid-19.sledilnik.org show.

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