Fifth vaccination phase can begin: National Vaccine Task Force

The National Vaccine Task Force is of the opinion that the fifth phase of vaccination can now begin, Chief State Health Inspector Assoc. Prof. Angel Kunchev announced after a meeting of the Task Force.
In his words this means that all people who wish to can be vaccinated via one of the three existing channels – GPs, the e-system or the green corridors, and this includes incarcerated persons, people from refugee camps, and some groups which are difficult of access. Angel Kunchev stated that in the past two days the number of people with coronavirus being hospitalized has been going up, and that an extension of the anti-epidemic situation beyond the end of May is not to be ruled out.
After 20 May storage of the Pfizer vaccine is expected to be allowed for up to 4 weeks instead of 7 days as is the case now.

Walk-in green corridors for vaccination remain open across Bulgaria

A total of 274,000 doses of Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine arrived in Bulgaria on May 10. For May alone, deliveries will be 2 million of the four different vaccines. Another 2.5 million doses are expected in June, BNR reported.
The walk-in green corridors for vaccination continue to operate. We have enough quantities of vaccines in the country, said Bogdan Kirilov, head of the Bulgarian Medicines Agency.
The vaccination of the persons registered for vaccination via the electronic portal starts today.
We currently have enough vaccines. Since the beginning of May, 125,000 people have been immunized, Kirilov added.

Citizens can choose vaccine online via electronic registration portal

As of today, Bulgarian citizens registered via the electronic coronavirus vaccination portal https://www.his.bg/bg/reservation/  will be able to choose their preferred vaccine.
Quantities of the two types of vaccine - mRNA or adenoviral vaccines - will be provided for all vaccination points across the country.

Bulgaria reports 4% coronavirus positivity rate

Bulgaria has registered a total of 241 new cases of coronavirus in the country out of 5,853 tests performed over the past 24 hours. 4.12% of the samples have returned positive, Single Information Portal data shows. The highest number of new infections is recorded in Sofia-city - 66. The districts of Varna follow with 30 and Veliko Tarnovo with 21 cases.
There are currently 44,881 active cases in the country. A total of 5,912 patients are in hospital with 562 of them in intensive care units.
27 people with established Covid-19 infection died in the past day. 207 people recovered in the past 24 hours.
A total of 5,645 vaccines were administered in the past day.
The doses administered in the country are already 938,064. The total number of persons who have received both doses is 291,996.

Rumen Draganov: In the conditions of pandemic there are no insignificant markets for Bulgarian tourism

In recent years, we have had more Ukrainian than Russian tourists. In 2020, we had 50,000 tourists from Russia and 200,000 tourists from Ukraine, Assoc. Prof. Rumen Draganov told bTV regarding the cancelled flights from Russia in May.
There are no insignificant markets, but they should be graded according to the progress of vaccination, Draganov said. According to this criterion, Israel is in first place, followed by Great Britain and then Germany. "Last year there was a decline of 60% not only in Bulgaria, the effort this year is to reduce this decline to 30%," said Assoc. Prof. Draganov.
The director of the National Board of Tourism, Polina Karastoyanova, stated that the forecast of the World Tourism Organization is that the tourism industry will return to 2019 levels in 2025.

Compiled by Vesela Krusteva