"You can see that there is a lasting trend of increasing the number of cured people on a daily basis in the country," said Minister of Health Prof. Kostadin Angelov at a briefing on the coronavirus today.

Vaccines against Covid-19 will be available for all vulnerable groups. Vaccination will be voluntary and will not be included in the immunization calendar of Bulgaria.

Vaccines will be free for everyone, said the Minister of Health. He pointed out that the occupancy of hospital beds in the country is 40% in general, intensive care is 23%, these numbers are dynamic because a complete reorganization of the health system in Bulgaria is currently underway.

The busiest regions are Blagoevgrad, Gabrovo, Pernik, Razgrad, Targovishte and Shumen. There are currently 1,802 active cases of coronavirus infection among healthcare workers.

1,672 of these are in home treatment, 121 are hospitalized and 9 are in intensive care units. So far, 22 medics have died from covid-19.

Bulgaria ranks 7th in Europe in terms of mortality with a coefficient of 9.86. Measurable with mortality in our country are Spain and France. "The philosophy of the measures is a limitation that would lead to a reduction in morbidity and effective control," explained Angelov.

Local headquarters in the respective municipalities have the opportunity to upgrade these measures if local morbidity poses a threat to the health system. "We have extremely good coordination with all municipal and district headquarters," said the Minister of Health. He pointed out that there will be days with lower temperatures, fogs and icing, and under such conditions the time window for visiting supermarkets by the elderly over 65 will be moved in the afternoon.

If crowds occur within the allowed hours, the window will be extended.

 "The pandemic continues to affect the continent to an extremely high degree, with all countries except Finland now in the red zone," said State Health Inspector Dr. Angel Kunchev. All regions in Bulgaria are also in the red zone, as the average incidence in the last 2 weeks in the country is 518 cases per 100 thousand people.

Kunchev explained that in Bulgaria have one of the mildest restrictions against the pandemic in Europe. The state health inspector added that in addition to the trend of increasing the number of recovered people, there is a certain retention of the share of positive tests on a weekly basis, which may indicate a plateau in the development of the epidemic.

"By the end of the week in Sofia we will have 400 beds for intensive care and over 3000 for seriously and moderately ill", said the director of "Pirogov" hospital Prof. Dr. Asen Baltov. 

He stressed that antibiotics and corticosteroids do not cure the coronavirus. They should only be taken with a prescription and could have serious consequences. "Corticosteroids in the early stages of the disease can lead to death because they lower immunity," said Prof. Dr. Assen Baltov.

 He explained that blood plasma from cured patients and remdesivir are also not universal remedies against Covid-19 and their use can have even fatal consequences for some patients. "Remdesivir is an extremely strong medicine with side effects and should not be used by everyone", affirmed Prof. Baltov.