Covid-19: Bulgarian cops investigated over secret party
An investigation is proceeding into four police who attended a secret party in the Popina Laka area of Bulgaria’s district of Sandanski, in violation of regulations against the spread of Covid-19, Interior Minister Hristo Terziyski confirmed on February 18.
Eighteen people had been present in the restaurant, including four staff of the Interior Ministry regional directorate, Terziyski said.
News of the party emerged because one of the partygoers broadcast from the occasion on social networks.
The police who attended the party face penalties under the Health Act and Interior Ministry Act.
“We are one of the bodies that must monitor the implementation of these (anti-epidemic) orders. Violating them is not the best example for our society,” Terziyski said.
In other news related to the Covid-19 situation:
On February 18, the next stage in the system of rotating school pupils in Bulgaria between in-person and distance learning took effect.
After two weeks of in-person classes, pupils in the seventh, eighth and 12th grades returned to distance learning, while pupils in the fifth, 10th and 11th grades returned to class.
Pupils in the first to fourth grades have been attending in-person classes since early January.
In small towns, if a school has only one class per grade, in-person learning resumed at the beginning of this week.
Pupils in the sixth, ninth and 12th grades will go over to in-person classes from March 4 to 17, while pupils in other higher grades go back to distance learning.
Bulgaria’s Ministry of Health said on February 18 that it had sent the Bulgarian Medical Association and the National Association of General Practitioners recommendations for the use of vaccines against Covid-19 among at-risk populations.
The recommendations have been prepared by the expert councils of the Minister of Health.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on February 18 that the new version of the Vaccine Tracker is now available as a separate dashboard.
It provides information on the national uptake of the first and second doses of Covid-19 vaccines by age and other target groups, as well as by vaccine products, for all EU/EEA countries. Information is provided as maps, graphs and charts and can be exported as data.
Data provided in the Vaccine Tracker is the latest information reported to ECDC by the relevant authorities in EU/EEA countries through the EU surveillance system, the ECDC said.
Data are subject to retrospective corrections, and corrected datasets are released as soon as the processing of updated national data has been completed.
The ECDC said that it is working closely with all EU/EEA countries to continually improve data completeness and quality.
“For accurate interpretation of data, various factors affecting vaccine deployment in each country should also be considered. Monitoring will be further enhanced as more vaccines are rolled out and more information on vaccine coverage becomes available.”
In addition to the latest data available in the Vaccine Tracker, the weekly COVID-19 vaccines roll-out overview report provides key figures and additional data as of the previous week.
The ECDC said that the latest weekly update indicates that, as of February 14, nearly 22 million vaccine doses have been administered in the EU/EEA, and the estimated median uptake of the first vaccine dose among adults aged 18 years and above in the EU/EEA is 4.2 per cent (among 29 countries reporting).
Within the most vulnerable group – those aged 80 years and above – the estimated median uptake of the second vaccine dose (full vaccination) is 5.6 per cent (among 20 countries reporting).
“These results should be interpreted with caution, as further work is ongoing to improve data quality and completeness,” the ECDC said.
Bulgarian President Roumen Radev postponed a visit to Pravets and the village of Vidrare scheduled for February 18 after his wife, Desislava Radeva, tested positive for Covid-19. The President’s office said that Radev had no symptoms of new coronavirus and felt in good health.
(Photo: Bart Groenhuizen/sxc.hu)
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The Sofia Globe’s coverage of the Covid-19 situation in Bulgaria is supported by the Embassies of Switzerland and Finland.
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