Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday that no new measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic would be introduced.

Speaking after a meeting with the heads of the hospitals in the COVID system, Vucic said that new measures were not discussed. “We did not enter into the measures, we’re leaving that to the experts… We discussed how to help people implement measures. We will have very strict sanctions but no new measures,” he said.

He said that health care system staff would get a single payment of 10,000 Dinars (1 Euro – 118 Dinars) by the end of the year. “Regardless of whether they are in COVID wards or not, that is 120,000 people in the system and we will raise salaries for health care staff as of January 1, he said. He said that Wednesday was the worst day so far with more than 1,200 new coronavirus infections.

 “There were 1,195 at noon, including 602 in Belgrade, which means that Belgrade still has more than 50 percent,” Vucic said.

He said that the meeting discussed the rising numbers of new cases, the functioning of the health care system, additional equipment for hospitals and care for non-coronavirus patients, the vaccine when it comes and flu vaccines. He said the situation in Serbia was still better than in other parts of Europe.