Today’s press conference on the latest situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic was attended by Alenka Forte, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health, Simon Podnar, technical director of the Neurological Clinic at the Ljubljana University Medical Centre, and Darko Černe, head of the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ljubljana University Medical Centre.

The results of Delo Stik’s telephone survey of 731 randomly selected telephone subscribers were presented on Friday, 15 February 1991. More than half of the respondents replied that Slovenia should speed up the independence process and become independent before the official expiry of the six-month deadline set at the plebiscite.

Today’s press conference on the current situation regarding the COVID-19 virus was held by Minister of Public Administration Boštjan Koritnik, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health Marija Magajne and Chairman of the Slovenian Economic Association in Austrian Carinthia Benjamin Wakounig, who spoke about experiences with preventive measures during the epidemic in Austria.

Prime Minister Janez Janša today submitted to the National Assembly a nomination of the new Minister of Health; his proposed candidate is Janez Poklukar.

Today, State Secretary Gašper Dovžan hosted János Bóka, State Secretary in charge of EU Affairs at the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office and the new Hungarian Sherpa for EU affairs.

Every day, consular representations of the Republic of Slovenia receive numerous enquiries from Slovenian citizens concerning crossing the state border during the holidays and the winter school break. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises again that tourist travel is not a legally permitted reason for entering most of Slovenia's neighbouring countries.

Members of the 12th Slovenian contingent of the Resolute Support Mission are concluding their six-month deployment in Afghanistan.
Within the Train Advise Assist Command - West, they were in charge of human resources and planning tasks at Camp Arena in Herat. In addition, they underwent tactical procedures training, and conducted patrols and reconnaissance in the area of responsibility.
Members of the 12th Slovenian contingent received special acknowledgements for their work, performance and esprit-de-corps showed in cooperation with members of other armed forces.

The Government has decided that from Monday the restriction of movement between municipalities will be lifted and gatherings of up to ten people will be permitted. All primary school students (except those on holiday) will return to school. Also from Monday, all commercial activities will be permitted without restriction.

On Thursday, 11 February 2021, the second meeting of the Committee of Senior Officials of the Adriatic and Ionian Initiative (AII) took place under the Slovenian chairmanship. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held via video conference.

This afternoon’s press conference on the latest situation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic was attended by Aleš Hojs (Minister of the Interior), Jernej Vrtovec (Minister of Infrastructure), Ajda Cuderman (State Secretary at the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology) and Damir Orehovec (State Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport).

Today’s press conference on the current situation with regard to COVID-19 was held by Deana Potza of the Health Inspectorate and Deputy Director General of the Police Tomaž Pečjak.

The Acting Director-General for Multilateral Affairs and Development Cooperation, Anita Pipan, attended an informal meeting of EU directors-general for development cooperation. This time, the focus was on the “Team Europe” initiatives, financing for development, the Southern Neighbourhood, and COVID-19 in terms of support for public health.

Celebrated around the world on 11 February, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is an opportunity to promote full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls.

The festive Carnival season traditionally begins with “Fat Thursday”, the day on which, according to Slovenian cultural tradition, the table should be laid with an array of fatty and filling Carnival dishes.

In the early morning hours of 11 February, the Slovenian Armed Forces (SAF) delivered a member of the Slovenian UNIFIL contingent with a severe course of the COVID-19 disease from Lebanon to Slovenia. During the flight, the SAF member was accompanied by the SAF chief physician.
The flight with the Falcon aircraft was smooth. After landing at Brnik airport, the Military Medical Unit ambulance transported the infected SAF member to the Dr Peter Držaj hospital in Ljubljana for further treatment. Two members of the SAF Veterinary Unit disinfected the aircraft all the equipment at the airport.
The United Nations operation UNIFIL in Lebanon includes six members the Slovenian Armed Forces. The other five contingent members tested negative for coronavirus infection. They are healthy and continue to perform tasks in the area of operations in southern Lebanon.

A number of media outlets today summed up the untrue statements of the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) in connection with the Slovenian Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). STA citing unofficial information reported that according to the European Commission Slovenia’s RRP is among the least prepared.

»We were the first generation to go to the army after secondary school, we went to university only after completing our military service,« recalls the current Minister of the Interior, Aleš Hojs, who was drafted into the Territorial Defence several times during his studies to participate in military exercises. He was drafted during the war for Slovenia, but as he points out, he more or less spent it waiting and did not take up arms, as there were not enough weapons because Slovenia had been disarmed. »It was then that we actually experienced how the whole nation, both those who were under arms and those who were not, stood up to get their own country,« he added.

Today’s press conference on the current situation with regard to COVID-19 was held by Nuška Čakš Jager, Deputy Director of the Centre for Communicable Diseases at the National Institute of Public Health (NIJZ), Marta Grgič Vitek, National Vaccination Programme Coordinator at the NIJZ, and Maja Ravnikar, Director of the National Institute of Biology.

The Biathlon World Championships is one of the biggest sporting events set to take place in Slovenia in 2021.

One important topic related to this is digitalisation. This in turn has brought many new challenges, and at the given moment we are faced with both its advantages and disadvantages.