Vaccination of 70,000 Croatian tourism workers to start in mid-April

ZAGREB, 9 April (Hina) – The vaccination of 70,000 Croatian tourism workers, both full-time and seasonal, against COVID-19 starts in mid-April, Tourism and Sport Minister Nikolina Brnjac agreed with Croatian Public Health Institute officials at a meeting on Friday.

Priority will be given to employees of hotels and camping sites as well as private accommodation providers and bar and restaurant workers, followed by administrative staff in that sector, the Jutarnji List daily said on Friday. 

A meeting was held at the government on Thursday and it was agreed that after persons above 65 and people with chronic diseases get vaccinated, tourism workers are an absolute priority in the third phase of vaccination so that the country could have a tourist season.

Tourism and Sports Minister Nikolina Brnjac said that around 70,000 tourism workers should get vaccinated, not including seasonal workers.

The government has said that employees of some emergency services have already been vaccinated, such as members of the army, police and the HGSS rescue service.

After tourism workers are vaccinated, by 1 May an action plan will be made for the vaccination of other priority groups and their vaccination will start.

Those priority groups include education workers, police officers, seafarers, prisoners, prison guards, migrants, shop assistants, production workers, etc.

It has also been proposed that reporters get vaccinated as well, primarily those who work in the field and are in close contact with other people.

The plan will be possible to implement only if people want to get vaccinated, especially considering the current developments with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which Croatia has ordered the most, the daily says.