Antigen test results will be added to daily statistics on Covid-19 cases

The results of antigen tests will be added to the national statistics on Covid-19 cases, Minister of Health Kostadin Angelov said on December 14. He added that 1,200,000 antigen tests had been provided. The minister also said that it was too early to ease the anti-epidemic measures.

Including the results of the rapid antigen tests will help to provide more accurate statistics on carriers of the infection, and more people with coronavirus will be subject to quarantine. Although PCR tests are the most accurate way to detect the presence of the virus, more and more antigen tests are being found to be over 90% reliable. You know, rapid tests give results in minutes, larger number of people can be tested and gathering of information about the epidemiological situation in the country would be faster. Rapid antigen tests will also be less expensive. The results from the rapid tests will carry equal weight with the PCR tests and are expected to be included in the national statistics after December 21.

By the end of this week, almost 1.200,000 antigen tests will reach all medical institutions, emergency centres, regional health inspectorates, he said.

People with a clinical picture and a positive antigen test will now also be included in the daily statistics.

Prof. Kostadin Angelov, Minister of Health: Patients who have a positive antigen test result and clinical picture will fall into the hypothesis of a positive patient with proven COVID-19. Accordingly, he/she should be in isolation for 14 days and, accordingly, his/her first-line contacts must be quarantined, which is 10 days, same as with PCR tests results.

The statistics cannot be changed retrospectively, the Minister of Health was form.

As regards the anti-epidemic measures due to expire on December 21, Angelov was adamant that they should remain as they are at the moment.

Prof. Kostadin Angelov: Nightclubs should remain closed. With regard to schools and kindergartens, it is too early, in my opinion, to re-open on 21 December, as the Christmas and New Year holidays are coming. They can be re-opened after the New Year.

A decision is to be made on restaurants and large retail outlets.

Prof. Kostadin Angelov: I insist that everything be as safe as possible for Bulgarian citizens, because if we continue to pay the price of 150 Bulgarians who lost their lives, this is not good, he said referring to the average number of Covi-19 associated deaths per day in Bulgaria.

He said that morbidity has dropped below 600 per 100.000, which gives us some hope, he added.