Double digit fall in new COVID cases is encouraging but me must continue to act responsibly

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Thursday that the new COVID numbers had been falling for two weeks in a row, and in the last seven days they dropped by 22%.

"Those are encouraging signs. However, those numbers are still high and we should not think that the risk of the infection is over," Plenković said at the beginning of the meeting of his cabinet in Zagreb on Thursday morning.

He again called on the general public to behave responsibly and respect anti-epidemic rules.

Plenković reiterated that more an more amounts of vaccines against coronavirus would be delivered to Croatia in the coming weeks.

Until 5 May, there were 341,000 confirmed cases of the infection with the novel virus in Croatia and of them 7,315 COVID patients died. This means that there is one COVID-related death per 47 confirmed cases of the infection.

On the other hand, one suspected case of the death can happen per 80,000 vaccinated people, the premier said in a bid to point out the importance of the vaccination.

No room for intolerance in Croatia

Plenković condemned hate speech used by a group of football fans in Borovo Selo near the eastern town of Vukovar, underscoring that there is no justification for last Sunday's incident and that there is no room for intolerance in Croatian society.

The incident occurred on the day of commemorations of the 30th anniversary of the killing of 12 Croatian policemen who lost their lives at the start of the Homeland War, and also coincided with this year's Easter celebrated by Orthodox believers according to the Julian calendar.

"There is no room for intolerance in Croatian society against the Serb minority or anyone else. We will always be strongly opposed to that and clearly condemn hate speech against anyone of our compatriots because we advocate a society in which everyone feels good and experience Croatia as their home," said Plenković opening Thursday's cabinet meeting.

He added that the 2 May incident was contrary to Croatia's interests and certainly was not a patriotic act, but just the opposite.

It is not hard to imagine that in such incidents there will be some people that will try maliciously to equate the victim and aggressor, finding some sort of abortive justification for their atrocities 30 years ago. That is all the more reason for clear condemnation, he added.

In an effort to appropriately punish those responsible, the police reacted immediately and arrested the participants involved in that provocative and impermissible incident, he added.

Text: Hina

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