After public criticism for the long delay, the Healthcare Ministry finally published its daily coronavirus report, about four hours later than usual, which sparked fears that it will reveal an exceptionally bad situation. The report shows by far the worst record of newly diagnosed coronavirus patients – 445 out of 2,441 tests. The last worst report, late last week, was below 400. Last week was also the first time Macedonia had over 300 positive tests in a single day, indicating that the spread of the infection has been rapidly accelerating over the past ten days.

More than half of the new cases – 249 – were reported in the capital Skopje. Strumica remains the second worst affected city with 36 cases, and Prilep has 25.

A high number of nine patients died over the illness in the past 24 hours. The patients were aged between 58 and 83, most of them in their 60ies, and were from Skopje, Kumanovo, Struga, Strumica, Kriva Palanka, Probistip and Sveti Nikole. This bring the total death toll to 809.

The Ministry informed that there were 4,236 active cases throughout the country – 1,969 of them in Skopje. The cases in Skopje are distributed mainly in the high density districts such as Aerodrom (400), Centar (353) and Karpos (344). Strumica has 281 active cases, Tetovo has 226, Kocani- 201, Prilep has 181 and Kumanovo – 168.

There were 16 patients admitted to the two clinics in Skopje which care for the most severe Covid-19 cases. There are 129 patients there in total. Three of the patients are kept alive through mechanical ventilation. Regional centers in Bitola and Stip have 33 and 48 patients respectively, while general hospitals across Macedonia care for a total of 187 patients.