Health Minister at news briefing on Covid-19: If we want to throw off the masks, the right decision is to believe in science

In some areas of the country the situation with the coronavirus is starting to become serious, Bulgaria’s Minister of Health, Kostadin Angelov, said on March 11 at the regular weekly briefing on the current epidemic situation in the country and the introduced anti-epidemic measures.

However, he added that this development was expected due to the spread of the new UK variant of the virus.

New facts are emerging every day that turn proven scientific arguments, the minister said. "For us as doctors, science is what we believe in, and the struggle for life and health of every Bulgarian citizen is leading for us. There are no right solutions and models to deal with this crisis. "There is no country, no society that does not pay a high price, with its economy and the mental health of the people," he added.

"Medicine can do much more, but it cannot fight for a patient who does not want to fight for himself. Every human life is priceless. We learned a lot this year. We are fighting against many lies, we refute many false statements. We create a lot of fear in people. And we are responsible for all this. If we want to live free, to throw off our masks, the only true and correct solution is to believe in science. And the science at the moment is vaccines," Prof. Angelov said.

The newly registered cases in the country for the past 24 hours are 2,774 out of 13,691 tests.

The highest number of positive cases were reported in Sofia - 734, followed by Plovdiv - 223 and Varna - 153. The active cases are 38,531, of which 6,395 are in hospitals and 501 in intensive care. For the past 24 hours, 2,531 have recovered and 97 people died.

The occupancy of beds in intensive care units is currently 65%, the minister said.

Chief State Health Inspector, Angel Kunchev said that the third wave of Covid-19 infections was present everywhere, especially in the Balkans.

He added that in terms of morbidity in the past 14 days, Bulgaria remained in 16th place in the European Union and in 5th in the Balkans.

The incidence was highest in the districts of Pleven, Kyustendil, Vratsa, Bourgas, Sofia, Shoumen and Pernik. In these districts, was decided to introduce additional measures locally such as switching back to distance learning for school students from 5th to 12th grades, making the wearing of masks in crowded places outdoors mandatory, cutting restaurant opening hours by an hour and limiting sports events, fitness centres. “To me, this is absolutely justified,” Kunchev said.

The incidence is lowest in the districts of Turgovishte, Vidin, Kardzhali, Razgrad and Dobrich.

The increase in morbidity was 38% a weekly basis. “We are currently at the level of November 5,” he said. There is a very steep rise in the Covid-19 mortality curve in Bulgaria. We have not had such an increase since September, the head of the national operational headquarters (the coronavirus task force) Major-General Ventsislav The increase is on average 53% on a weekly basis, he said.

The number of hospitalised cases was up by 12% on a weekly basis, the increase in occupancy of intensive care beds was 11.3%. “Things are not going in the right direction, measures must be taken,” he said, pointing to hospitals where capacity was exhausted.

“This morning at the Military Medical Academy we had five free beds, although three days ago we opened two new clinics. By the time I return from this briefing, these beds will no longer be available,” he said.

"We have a very vivid memory of how this thing started with a single laboratory in Bulgaria. There are now over 100 such laboratories and can provide reliable information. This is a huge job that was done in the beginning. At previous peaks, we had families in which it was observed that one or two family members were not infected. At the moment, our observations show that all family members get infected if there is one person with Covid-19 in them, said Prof. Mutafchyiski.

The Head of the Medicines Agency, Bogdan Kirilov, told the news conference that yesterday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published information about the blocked batch of Astra Zeneca vaccine. An investigation is under way into the case in Austria, which is blocking the delivery of a specific batch of the vaccine due to a death. So far there is no data on a causal link, he said and the European Medicines Agency had not recommended that other countries suspend vaccinations with the vaccine. It was delivered to 17 countries, including Bulgaria. 31,200 doses were delivered to Bulgaria on February 12 and almost all of them were administered. Bulgarian health authorities had not received any reports on adverse reactions, he said.

Kirilov said that reports of adverse reactions after vaccinations included flu like symtoms and swelling at the injection site. The rate is about three in 1000, meaning 840 such reports.

images by BGNES

Чуйте последните новини, където и да сте!
Последвайте ни във Facebook и Instagram
Следете и канала на БНТ в YouTube
Вече може да ни гледате и в TikTok
Намерете ни в Google News