No more than eight hospitals will treat coronavirus patients in Sofia

National Health Inspector and member of the coronavirus crisis response team Dr. Angel Kounchev said today that no more than eight hospitals will carry on treating coronavirus patients. The rest will cease admitting patience with COVID-19, which will enable them to focus on non-corona related diseases.

The coronavirus crisis response team had asserted that the relatively low number of patients in Sofia needing treatment in a hospital, it is better to limit the number of facilities caring for such patients.

At the outset of the crisis in early March a number of hospitals in Sofia and the country established special units dedicated to COVID-19 treatment. Those will not be shut down, however, but will remain as backups, Kounchev said.

The hospitals, which will continue to treat COVID-19 will be the Military Hospital, Pirogov Hospital, Alexandrovska Hospital, Infectious Disease Hospital, St. Anna Hospital, Second City Hospital, and the Lung Hospital.

These medical facilities are large enough not only to accommodate all patients, but to ensure coronavirus patients, medical and other staff caring for them are securely isolated from the rest of the hospital.

Today Minister of Health Kiril Ananiev also issued an order allowing kindergartens to open from May 22. Opening kindergartens has been a matter of some debate among officials. After the coronavirus crisis response team announced the loosening of the most recent bundle of restrictions – malls and gyms opened this Monday – officials said they would make a decision for kindergartens this week. Municipal governments will retain the right to keep kindergartens closed in the relative locality, though.

Meanwhile the number of confirmed cases over the past 24 hours rose by 24. The number of newly discovered cases per day is still declining. The total number of confirmed cases is now 2259, 1501 are active cases.

Today, for the first time since the outbreak, the number of recovered patients for the day exceeds the number of newly discovered – 34.

112 people with a coronavirus infection have died.