Large queues for Covid-19 vaccination and tests as new measures came into force

There have been long queues of people waiting to get vaccinated outside “Pirogov" and "St. Anna" hospitals in Sofia on October 22.

Yesterday, more than 350 people were vaccinated at “St. Anna” hospital, which necessitated an extension of the working hours until 9:30 p.m.

Due to the new anti-Covid-19 measures, a queue of medical professionals formed in front of "Pirogov" emergency hospital early in the morning. They were waiting to be tested before going to work in the hospital, because according to the new rules, all staff in medical facilities and care homes are required to have a “green certificate”, which means an official document showing that the person has completed the vaccination course against Covid-19, has ben ill and recovered from the disease, or has had a negative result of a PCR (no older than 72 hours) or antigen (no older than 48 hours) test.

For a second day in a row, the night shift takes care of the patients in the ward because the first shift is delayed, explained the head of the covid ward.

"A night shift includes a doctor, a nurse, a healthcare assistant because of insufficient staff. Since yesterday morning we have received only 3 certificates for the people who passed here, remember what the queue was. 25 of them are from my team. And these certificates claim that the samples were taken tonight or last night ", commented Assoc. Prof. Petar Atanasov - head of the Covid ward in "Pirogov" hospital.

According to Assoc. Prof. Atanasov, the ward works on autopilot and a faster solution should be found.

"Because the others have been immunized. They were “vaccinated” last year with the natural vaccine, they had been ill, none of them have been infected for a second time," added Assoc. Prof. Atanasov.

In addition to medical professionals, pther people who wanted to get vaciccinated were waiting in the queues in front of the hospitals in Sofia. By 10:00 this morning, more than 75 people had been vaccinated at St. Anna Hospital.

There was also a queue of people willing to be immunized early in the morning in front of the Military Medical Academy.

All hospitals in Sofia have all types of vaccines, only the Military Medical Academy and Alexandrovska Hospital do not have the Astra Zeneca vaccine.