Mathematics professor: Potentially, about 50 000 people in Bulgaria infected with new coronavirus
Potentially, there are about 50 000 people in Bulgaria infected with new coronavirus, mathematics Professor Nikolai Vitanov said in a July 9 television interview.
To date, the official number of confirmed cases in Bulgaria – counting in those who have died and those who have recovered – is 6342, according to the national information system.
Vitanov heads the team providing mathematical modelling of the development of Covid-19 to Bulgaria’s national operational headquarters.
He said to calculate the number of potentially infected, there were two methods.
One was to multiply the number of dead by 200, and the other to multiply by eight the number of confirmed cases. Either method produced a figure of about 50 000.
About 1.5 million Bulgarians are not complying with restrictive measures because they believe in the theory that the coronavirus is harmless, he said.
Vitanov said that on March 19, he had said that should people comply with the measures, in three months Bulgaria would emerge from the medical part of the crisis.
But this had not happened, with “a group of people is forming who believe in the theory that this thing is harmless, do not follow the measures and here is the result.”
He said that currently one patient infects 1.33 people, that is, 100 people infect 133.
The interview with Vitanov came as the national information system reported 240 newly-confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, with the number of active cases having risen in the past day by 106 to a total of 2917.
Over the past month, the number of active cases of Covid-19 in Bulgaria has increased by 1858. The number of deaths, in that time, has risen from 164 to 259, an increase of 95.
(Screenshot of Vitanov: BNT)
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