Covid-19: Bulgaria’s Cabinet extends epidemic declaration to May 31
Bulgaria’s outgoing government decided on April 28 to extend the Covid-19 epidemic emergency declaration by one month to May 31, as well as allocating additional funds for front-line medical personnel.
Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said after the Cabinet sitting that data showed a downward trend in the morbidity and mortality rates, with the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals also on the decline, while vaccination was progressing “at a very good pace”.
Angelov said that the extension of the epidemic declaration would allow the authorities to “consolidate the results achieved so far.”
The Cabinet approved 83 million leva, or about 42.4 million euro, in funding for front-line medical personnel for the months of May and June, the government media office said in a statement.
Of that funding, 23 million leva would cover payments of 1000 leva a month to Health Ministry staff and 60 million leva were allocated as a transfer to the National Health Insurance Fund, which would cover such payments to hospital staff, as well as 10 leva per vaccine shot administered, given to doctors participating in the Covid-19 vaccination campaign.
Finance Minister Kiril Ananiev said after the sitting that all funding for the Cabinet’s social and economic pandemic response measures has been secured through June.
Ananiev also said that all spending approved in the 2021 Budget Act has been “financially secured”, rejecting the criticism from President Roumen Radev, who earlier in the day blamed the outgoing Cabinet for not tabling a budget revision motion.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Boiko Borissov had its resignation voted by Parliament earlier this month, but remains in office in acting capacity until a government is voted by the National Assembly or a caretaker Cabinet is appointed by Radev.
At a ceremony to offer the exploratory mandate to form a Cabinet to cable television presenter Slavi Trifonov’s political party, Radev said that by failing to table a budget revision, Borissov’s government would leave a caretaker cabinet would the financial means to pursue pandemic response measures.
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