Thirty-Seven People Die of COVID-19 in Serbia, 5,255 Newly Infected

COVID-19 patient (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

In the last 24 hours, 37 people died of COVID-19 in Serbia, bringing the death toll to 7,700, the authorities announced on Sept. 19.

According to the Serbian Institute of Public Health, 5,255 new cases of infection were confirmed out of 16,642 tested samples. A total of 4,401 patients have been hospitalized, 183 of whom are on ventilators. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 5,407,881 people have been tested in Serbia of whom 865,686 tested positive for the virus.

Virologist Milanko Sekler said on Sept. 19 that it was already too late for COVID passes to have any real effect, because their purpose should have been to prevent the current number of new infections.

"Representatives of the state themselves do not follow the measures, and then don a mask when they go abroad. It is not normal to have sports events with 25,000 people, and then make a problem out of ten people riding a bus without masks. Or to bus people in from all over Serbia without anyone wearing a mask and talk about the problem of people using public transport without masks and go - let's find them," Sekler said.