"We have entered the third year of the pandemic, and we can see that it is waning," Beroš said, adding that the decision to relax COVID protocols was well-thought-out.
He, however, warned that the time was not ripe yet for declaring the end of the pandemic, and called for caution, especially when the health of senior citizens or citizens with underlying conditions is at stake.
The head of the Croatian Institute of Public Health (HZJZ), Krunoslav Capak, said that the relaxation of the restrictions ensued due to the improvement in the epidemiological situation and due to the fact that over 70% of adults have received at least one a shot of a COVID vaccine. Furthermore, an estimated 600,000 people, who have been diagnosed with this disease since the start of 2022, have acquired immunity in that way.
The head of the Zagreb-based Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Alemka Markotić, said that the second-generation vaccines could be developed soon and that the situation with the pandemic could become stable by this autumn.