Bulgaria reports 8% positive tests for coronavirus in past day

Bulgaria has registered a total of 620 new cases of Covid-19 with 7,804 tests performed. This means that 7.94% of the samples returned positive. Most newly registered patients with Coviid-19 are in Sofia - 110, Blagoevgrad - 48, and Plovdiv – 47, data of the Single Coronavirus Information Portal updated at midnight show. There are 26 new cases among medical staff. 4,046 patients with Covid-19 are currently treated in hospital, 375 of them are in intensive care units. 2,583 people have recovered in the last 24 hours.106 persons have died in the past day, bringing the total death toll to 8,232 people.The active cases are 63,057.The total number of vaccinated persons in Bulgaria is 14,161. 

Face-to-face classes now allowed

In-person classes for students in 5th to 12th grade and practices of students that cannot be conducted remotely are now allowed. The rest of the classes remain online until January 31, BTA reported. Minister of Education Krassimir Valchev has called for the return of all students to class. At a working meeting with Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Minister of Health Kostadin Angelov said the current measures should remain in place until the end of January. He said that the epidemic situation continued to improve. In terms of morbidity, Bulgaria holds the 26th place in the EU and 31st place in the whole of Europe. Bulgaria is 7th in the EU in terms of mortality. The number of daily recoveries also remains higher than the number of new cases.

Vaccination of elderly citizens would allow for more liberal measures against Covid-19

Good organization of mass immunization against Covid-19 allows for more liberal measures. This is what Dr. Stoycho Katsarov, Chairman of the Center for Protection of Rights in Healthcare, has told BNR. According to him, the vaccination plan should have included rapid immunization of people over 60 years of age first. In Bulgaria they are over 2 million and mortality rate among them is the highest. This can happen in two months, so that by the end of March the country would remove all restrictions, Katsarov says. According to him, distrust of vaccines was related to distrust of the government.

Compiled by: Gergana Mancheva

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