Highest increase in coronavirus deaths recorded yesterday

The Maribor UKC hospital reported its first Covid-19 deaths today, saying that a patient from a nursing home died at the hospital on Thursday and another patient on Friday. Both were elderly.

"Sadly, I must report the first two fatalities. One is a person who had been in our intensive care unit for a while, and another was moved here yesterday from an old-age home outside our region," UKC Maribor medical director Matjaž Vogrin said.

Details about other fatalities are not available, but the first reported fatalities were residents of nursing homes, which have become the coronavirus hotspot in the country.

Data released by the Health Ministry show that a total of 177 nursing home residents were infected as of Thursday, 15 more than the day before.

Health Ministry data also show that 128 health workers are infected.

As of Thursday, 112 Covid-19 patients were hospitalised, 30 of them in intensive treatment units, five were discharged from hospital, the government said on Twitter earlier.

A total of 1,064 tests were performed yesterday to put the overall number at 25,921.

As many as 135 of Slovenia's 212 municipalities have recorded at least one confirmed infection and 85 recorded two or more cases.

While the capital Ljubljana still has the highest number of cases, at 158, up three in a day, the outbreaks elsewhere are centred around care homes.

The biggest jump in new cases was recorded in Ljutomer in the north-east of the country, by eight to 46. All eight new cases were at the old-age facility there where now 41 are infected.

To contain the spread, fifteen healthy residents of the facility who are able to look after themselves have been moved to be quarantined at the apartments of the tourist complex Bioterme Mala.

The biggest hot spot is at the care home at Šmarje pri Jelšah, where 60 residents and 15 staff were infected according to data as of Wednesday.

Only data for the whole Šmarje pri Jelšah community are available for Thursday showing that the number of infections there rose by four to 116.

Another hot spot is a nursing home in Horjul, a community just west of Ljubljana that saw its tally of cases rise by two to 26 on Thursday.

As of Wednesday 19 of the infected were residents at the nursing home and four were staff, who have been quarantined at home.

Out of seven residents tested on Thursday, two were positive, the Horjul facility manager said on Friday, which would put the total number of the infected there to 21, plus four staff.

The Horjul facility manager said that four of the residents who fell ill with Covid-19 were being treated at hospital.