Doctor Zarko Karadzovski, head of the Committee on Infectious Diseases, said that the mass wedding and other celebrations held during the summer months, caused the current Fourth Wave of the epidemic.

We had 10 cases a day at the beginning of the summer, and now we have 1,200. The situation is uncertain and is getting worse. It happened because of the wholesale disregard for the restrictions in parts of the country, the massive move to organize weddings and other celebrations, no masks were worn there, there were no disinfectants, people were packed in crowded spaces. There were thousands of weddings and some people apparently forgot that the virus exists, Karadzovski said.

The Government did not impose PCR requirements to cross the border, which helped draw tens of thousands of emigrants from Macedonia, many of them ethnic Albanians living in Western Europe, to come and spend the summer in their native towns and villages. Traditionally, many weddings take place in this period. As a result, emigrant centers like cities of Gostivar and Tetovo, are now overwhelmed with new coronavirus cases and deaths.