Bulgaria registers rise in coronavirus deaths and 25% positive PCR tests in the past 24 hours

The director of one of the largest hospitals in Sofia, treating COVID-19 patients, Asen Baltov told NOVA TV that the capacity of his hospital for treating patients with coronavirus is full. In the past week, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Pirogov Hospital doubled. 68 people receive treatment there currently, two of whom are in the ICU.

"Unfortunately, we cannot admit any more patients. at the end of the day, we do not treat only coronavirus infections. Pirogov takes one the extremely heavy burden of trauma patients from Sofia and the country," Baltov said.

He went on to explain his hospital is not facing shortage of doctors "but they are extremely tired. It has been six months of non-stop work. Unfortunately, the number of volunteers in coronavirus wards is very low."

He also expressed concern that doctors, other medical personnel and patients from non-COVID-19 wards in the hospital do not take as many precautions to protect against contracting the virus, as he would like.

"I’m sorry to say the rest of my collegues, who work in the other wards have developed a relaxed approach [in the past two months]."

Baltov expressed the opinion that the best course of action regarding measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus is on a local level, as opposed to nation-wide restrictions.

This is more or less in line with the government’s refusal to impose new restrictions to slow the spread of the coronavirus, despite the steady rise of daily cases, hospitalizations and heaths since the summer ended. PM Boyko Borissov even ordered the mandatory quarantine to be reduced from 14 days to only ten days.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria registered a new rise in COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours: 18 people with the virus have died, which marks the second-highest number of daily deaths in Bulgaria since the outbreak began, bringing the total number of fatalities to 986.

A chilling statistic from the past day came from the PCR tests. A fourth of them came back positive, or 395 confirmed coronavirus infections out of just 1581 tests.

The number of infections alone is also relatively very high for a Monday. On Sunday the laboratories process fewer tests, so the number of daily cases is always lower compared to the rest of the week. And several weeks ago nearly 400 daily cases would have been reported as almost record high in the middle of the week and out of a pool of about 4000 tests, today’s Monday-low of 400 seem consistent with last week’s daily cases, which almost hit 1000.

1500 people positive for the coronavirus are being treated in hospitals currently. This marks an increase of 300 patients compared to one week ago. 74 people with COVID-19 are in ICUs.

29503 people with a coronavirus infection have tested positive since the first cases were discovered in Bulgaria back in early March. 11574 of those are currently active, while 16943 have recovered from the virus.