Mag. Franc Vindišar, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health, initially said that 3,144 people tested positive yesterday, which is 1,132 fewer than last Tuesday. However, there are still 43,457 active infections countrywide. In the last seven days, an average of almost 3,000 cases a day have been confirmed. 1,168 people require hospital treatment, of those 283 patients are being treated in intensive care units. 206 patients are intubated and the average age of ICU patients is 64.7. 15 COVID-19 hospitals operate as a single COVID-19 hospital at national level, following the principle of crisis management.

State Secretary Vindišar said that hospitals were actively concluding agreements on redeployment of human resources with other institutions. UKC LJ for example reports that it has concluded agreements with 27 institutions, which has allowed the University Medical Centre to redeploy 54 additional graduate nurses and 22 mid-level nurses to COVID-19 wards. COVID-19 hospitals have also undergone internal reorganisation. These hospitals thus report that 355 specialist doctors, 214 resident doctors, 913 graduate nurses, and 645 mid-level nurses have been redeployed to COVID-19 wards, both to regular and intensive units.

“It needs to be emphasised that health workers employed with concessionaires and in private facilities, as well as medical students, nursing care students, and secondary school students have offered to help in COVID-19 wards. There are currently 249 people who have registered and willing to help in COVID-19 wards.  Among them, dentists prevail (72), together with doctors (44), medical students (33), and students of nursing care (30),” says State Secretary Vindišar.

He also explained what it means when intensive care bed capacities are being increased on a daily basis.

“Please allow me to address you as someone who rearranges and assigns hospital beds with Dr Carotta every day. My heart feels heavy with every new hospitalised patient and especially when they switch wards and are transferred to the intensive care unit. These are my fellow citizens, people we know, our neighbours. It is even more difficult looking at the daily number of deaths. All these people have families. There are tears and tremendous sorrow involved here.  Please, decide to get vaccinated. Protect yourself and your family. It might be you, who will need medical assistance. Solidarity and trust in science are among us. We just need to find them. I still believe that we can do it. We just need to come together and unite against the virus. Please, get vaccinated,” concluded mag. Vindišar.

In the words of Martina Gašperlin, acting director of the Market Inspectorate, in the last two weeks, the Market Inspectorate continued carrying out rigorous inspections, with an emphasis on the compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule. 9 shops have been temporarily closed due to failure to check compliance with this rule. The Saturday before last, when the inspection of compliance with the closure of nightclubs started, 1 restaurant in Ljubljana was closed. 

The Market Inspectorate carried out inspections of approximately 1,200 economic operators, establishing minor irregularities in the case of 265 operators. Of that, market inspectors carried out as many as 263 inspections during the two weekends. The majority of the inspections were carried out in the trade sector. In terms of numbers, this means 44 shopping centres, 171 petrol stations, 326 clothes and footwear shops, 192 technical goods shops, etc. Due to the established irregularities, 183 administrative warnings were issued in the trade sector, instructing operators to see to the elimination of these irregularities. The failure to wear masks was established in only 8 cases. There were 11 cases of non-compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule by the employees.

During the inspections, 9 oral decisions for established irregularities, which the market inspector deemed as posing a threat to human health and life (customers’ compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule was not checked), were issued, which imposed immediate and temporary prohibition of activity in shops and petrol stations until the elimination of the established irregularities. During the intensified inspections, a total of 15 oral decisions were issued which prohibited trade activities.

In cases where violations were not remedied despite a previous warning, 20 payment orders in the total value of EUR 83,200 were issued, i.e. for reasons of the liable parties not checking customers’ compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule (of those 12 at petrol stations, 3 in clothes shops, and 5 in other types of shops). 

“At the last coordination meeting with regional heads, we found that a major step forward has been taken in the recent weeks in terms of checking compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule, also with the help of the 15 issued oral decisions on the prohibition of trade activities. I must admit that I was worried about how the checking of compliance together with a personal identity document would be carried out and I must emphasise that we were able to quickly accept this measure as a part of our temporarily changed lives,” said the acting director of the Market Inspectorate.

“For this reason, I would like to thank all companies that rigorously check compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule together with a personal identity document. A thank you also goes out to the customers, who show proof of compliance and their personal identity document without any complaints and bad mood. And finally, a thank you to all employees who implement compliance checks at entry points. Thank you to all who conscientiously wear protective surgical masks, thus protecting yourselves and others around you. Thank you for your patience. I truly believe that by consistently checking compliance with the recovered/vaccinated/tested rule, we are preventing the spread of the coronavirus and unnecessary deaths,” Ms Gašperlin concluded.