Croatia ready to set up 2,360 beds in makeshift hospitals if necessary
- by croatiaweek
- in News
(Photo credit: HINA/ Tomislav PAVLEK/tp)
ZAGREB, Oct 22 (Hina) – Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic said on Thursday that the authorities were preparing additional beds in makeshift facilities for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, following a surge in the number of daily cases of the coronavirus infection.
For this purpose, Zagreb’s Arena Centre, Split’s Spaladium hall, Rijeka’s Dvorana Mladosti venue as well as similar locations in Varazdin and Osijek have been selected for installing a total of 2,360 beds, if necessary.
Bozinovic informed the government that those capacities could be prepared to take in COVID-19 patients within 48 hours.
He also called on the Croatians to avoid all unnecessary contacts so as to help efforts to curb the infection.
Today, Croatia reported a total of 1,563 new coronavirus cases and 13 related deaths in the last 24 hours.
This is the largest single-day number of new infections and deaths since the start of the epidemic in the country.
The current number of active cases is 7,380. Among those infected, 661 are receiving hospital treatment for COVID-19 and 46 of them are on ventilators.
Since February 25, when the first cases were confirmed in Croatia, 29,850 people have contracted the novel virus, 406 of them have died and 22,064 have recovered, including 629 in the last 24 hours.
Currently, 25,620 people are in self-isolation. To date, 418,821 coronavirus tests have been performed, including 6,874 in the last 24 hours.
Croatian Army personnel have been actively helping civil institutions and citizens since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, and between March and October, they erected 51 tents for treatment of patients or triage outside medical institutions across the country.
Apart from providing logistical assistance to medical institutions in setting up camps and tents to provide additional capacity for the accommodation of patients or triage, assistance has also been provided by medical staff working for the army, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
