“Sofia is again in the “red zone” after a new spike in the number of people infected with coronavirus. The situation is getting alarming and tense. What worries us is the gradual rise in hospitalizations,” Dr. Dancho Penchev, Director of Sofia Regional Health Inspectorate (SRHI), told bTV.

Yesterday, Health Minister Prof. Kostadin Angelov had a meeting with the heads of the major hospitals.

"The measures were loosened before we received this information. Currently the restrictions are eased carefully. Only some malls and gyms have been opened. The restaurants will remain closed for now. We will monitor the dynamics of morbidity, which will prompt us what to do further", said Dr. Penchev.

He was adamant that a new tightening of measures was absolutely possible if morbidity rate reaches 600 per 100,000 people.

'For now, the decision to return the children to school will not be revised. We still apply a rotation principle - this is a new measure that we are implementing with the Ministry of Education," the head of the SRHI added.

In the past week, the health inspectorate has carried out 200 inspections in eateries, malls and gyms and 21 incidents of violations were established, said Dr. Penchev, who noted that the inspection staff of 242 people was insufficient for effective control, but when they receive a signal of non-compliance with the restrictions, they immediately react.

The director of the SRHI also said that according to this morning’s data, in Pirogov emergency hospital of 103 positive tests, 43 patients are infected with the British strain of the virus. These are people who have not left the country recently, Dr. Penchev reported. According to him, the worrying thing is that the virus is "getting younger" and infects people in younger age groups.

Dr. Penchev said that he was vaccinated, and learnt about the choice of vaccine from leaflets, which informed that vaccines trials are still underway. The Director of the SRHI noted that in the spring there will be enough vaccines to choose from. The European Medicines Agency sees no problem in administering the AstraZeneca vaccine to older people, while the Bulgarian regulator is still discussing the case.

The director of the SRHI said he didn‘t think he had made a mistake lifting the President and Prime Minister's quarantine. He resigned for personal reasons because his mother had died, and returned to his post as director of the SRHI after his colleagues insisted.