Highest number of hospitalized patients since start of pandemic

A total of 4,637 new cases of coronavirus have been registered in Bulgaria in the past 24 hours out of 19,497 tests performed. According to the Single Coronavirus Information Portal, 24% of the tests have returned positive result. Most of the new Covid-19 cases are in Sofia – 1,116. Followed by the districts of Burgas - 449, Plovdiv - 362 and Varna - 343 new cases. There are 44,663 active cases. 187 people have died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total death toll to 11,472. There are 7,269 patients in hospital, as 577 of them are in intensive care. 1,877 people have recovered during the past day, bringing the total number of recoveries to 227,059. 2,828 people have been vaccinated for a day. The total number of vaccinated citizens since the beginning of the campaign has reached 341,707 as 59,994 people have already received their second dose of vaccine.

Hacker attack against servers of a number of medical laboratories in Bulgaria

The web pages of most medical laboratories in Bulgaria are not accessible, said for the BNR Dr. Nedyalko Kalachev, owner of one of the largest chains of laboratories in this country. “A group of laboratories across the entire country have been attacked, because they are in one data center with the servers. We are talking about laboratories in Varna, Pleven, Ruse, Plovdiv, Haskovo, Pernik and Sofia”, specified Dr. Kalachev.

Bulgaria is preparing to tighten anti-epidemic measures

Bulgaria is to introduce new and stricter anti-epidemic measures to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, said this country’s Chief State Health Inspector Dr. Angel Kunchev after the meeting at the Bulgarian Ministry of Health. This country’s authorities will announce their decision on Thursday. In Sofia city and Sofia Region, the measures are likely to enter into force on Saturday. Bulgaria is likely to introduce new restrictions across the country next Monday. In Angel Kunchev’s view, the measures should last at least 14 days, in order to yield the necessary results. Bulgaria is planning to close restaurants, fitness centers, shopping malls, schools, kindergartens and nurseries. However, the authorities are not planning to introduce Police checkpoints on routes into and out of the large cities. 27 Bulgarian districts are now classified as Covid-19 red zones. Targovishte is the only Bulgarian district that is not a Covid-19 red zone. Burgas is the city with highest morbidity rates. The fourteen-day incidence rate in this Bulgarian city has reached 724 cases of new infections per 100,000 people.

Immunization to cover up to 40% of the active population by summer

There is no chaos in the organization of the vaccination process. A statement on the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine is expected on March 17. Vaccinations are currently being carried out with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, Prof. Krassimir Gigov, chairman of the National Vaccination Headquarters, said in the city of Varna. "There is no chaos and there is no stopping but a temporary postponement of the process and this is due to reasons beyond our control." It is expected that in the summer months vaccination would cover 30-40% of the population, which would lead to a decline in the rate of infection and control of the situation, Prof. Gigov said.

Vaccination should not stop because of a single case of adverse reaction

If we continue like this and use every single case as a reason to stop vaccination, we would need 10 years to get vaccinated. This was what Dr. Ivan Madzharov, head of the Bulgarian Medical Association has told BNT. He pointed out that suspension of planned operations did not have the purpose of an anti-epidemic measure but was used more as a way to provide enough medical staff, "especially resuscitators needed in order to provide necessary care to COVID-19 patients." There is no shortage of hospital beds in the country. There are difficulties in some places, but we do not see fear and confusion among our colleagues, as it was in the autumn. One third of the population lives in Sofia and it is clear that the biggest workload will be in the capital city, Dr. Madzharov added.

Bulgaria and five other EU countries complain that Covid-19 vaccines are not delivered on proportionate basis

Austria’s chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Bulgaria’s Premier Boyko Borissov, Latvia’s Prime Minister Arturs Krišjānis Kariņš, Slovenia’s Premier Janez Janša, Croatia’s Premier Andrej Plenković and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Andrej Babiš have held a working meeting in Vienna on Tuesday. They complained that the Covid-19 vaccines are not delivered on a proportionate basis among the EU member states. Sebastian Kurz said at the meeting that he had agreed with the Presidents of the European Commission and the European Council to adjust the distribution of vaccines. Earlier, the press office of the Bulgarian government announced that it is extremely important that the distribution of the vaccines to the member states be carried out simultaneously and proportionately to the size of a country’s population, so as to achieve herd immunity across the EU at the same time.

Suspension of AstraZeneca vaccination is not fatal for Europe, says EC spokesperson

"Stopping vaccination with AstraZeneca will not be fatal to the vaccination in the EU, nor to the goals set by the Commission," European Commission spokesperson for Health, Food Safety and Transport Stefan de Keersmaecker said in an interview with BNR's Horizont channel. "When we signed the contracts with vaccine developers, we were trying to build a diverse portfolio and invest in a variety of vaccines. It contains a total of 2.6 billion doses from 6 manufacturers. This was very important for us because we were not sure that the companies would be able to develop and produce the vaccines. Choosing a diverse portfolio turned out to be very important and useful. Now we really have problems with the production of AstraZeneca, but our portfolio includes vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson and Johnson, etc," De Keersmaecker said.

Compiled by: Gergana Mancheva and Radio Bulgaria’s News Team

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