Health Minister Vili Beros said on Friday that 81 new coronavirus cases had been registered in Croatia in the last 24 hours, correcting the director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, who had previously confirmed 84 cases.

“Officially, according to the HZJZ platform, 81 new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours, and Capak mistakenly said that there have been 84 cases,” the health minister said at the first meeting of the new cabinet.

The number of active cases in Croatia is 1,032, 139 people are being treated in hospital and nine of them are on ventilators. Since the start of the outbreak in the country in late February, 128 have died, including eight in the past week, Beros said.

He said that the known hotspots relating to nightclubs in Zagreb and a monastery in the eastern town of Djakovo had been placed under control and that the number of new infections in these areas was on the decline. He added that smaller clusters in Sisak-Moslavina and Virovitica-Podravina Counties were also under control, while a hotspot in Ivankovo in Vukovar-Srijem County remained active.

The other continental counties are mainly calm, without any major clusters, while several smaller clusters have been observed in the coastal counties. However, 54.3 percent of the positive cases today come from self-isolation, which means that these persons are under observation, the minister said.

The national coronavirus response team reported 104 new cases on Thursday and 108 on Wednesday, and Beros said that most of the new cases were currently exhibiting milder symptoms.

“Although the epidemiological situation is under control, we must not be satisfied because we have shown that we can do better. That's why I call on the citizens to observe simple rules to protect themselves and others from the infection,” Beros said.