In a highly unusual move, the Healthcare Ministry still hasn’t published its daily report on coronavirus deaths and infections. Usually the report is published in the early afternoon.

Macedonia is in the midst of a major new spike in the epidemic, with numbers of newly infected patients pushing over 300 for the first time last week. For three days in a row, each day set a new record and the rise stopped just under 400, out of over 2,600 tests. During the weekend, as usual, the number of tests that are conducted dropped greatly and so did the number of newly infected patients. As Monday was a day off, due to the anniversary of the World War Two partisan uprising, today’s report was supposed to be the first day of full scale testing, and was awaited to show if the trend of the end of last week will continue.

The failure on the part of the Ministry to reveal the latest report is causing growing anxiety on social media, as rumors are spreading that the number of new infections will set another grim record. People “in the know” are leaking reports ostensibly from the Healthcare Ministry that the number of newly infected patients significantly surpassed 400.