45% of teachers in Bulgaria do not plan to get vaccinated against Covid-19

27% of teachers in Bulgaria want to get vaccinated against Copvid-19 and other 27% are still undecided. However, 45% of them are not planning to receive vaccines, indicates an online survey of the Bulgarian Union of Teachers and the Association of Directors in Secondary Education in Bulgaria conducted among more than 13,000 pedagogues between February 9 and 13.

More than 47% of the teachers who are unwilling to receive vaccines are worried about possible side effects of the vaccines. 44% of the respondents say they do not have reliable information about the effect of the vaccines, BNR’s reporter Andrey Borisov informs.

Bulgaria expected to receive vaccines for over 10 million people

“In the coming months there will be much larger quantities of vaccines so that people will certainly be able to make a choice,”Bogdan Kirilov, executive director of the Bulgarian Drug Agency said for BNT.

“Bulgaria’s decision regarding the different vaccines is for a balanced portfolio that includes all vaccines developed, so as to guarantee effectiveness,”he added. “More than 240,000 doses are expected by the end of February, and over 500,000 in March. That is why we are going to see an accelerated rate of vaccination. The total amount of vaccines which Bulgaria is able to purchase under the EU agreements is over 18 million doses. This is so because one of the vaccines is expected to be administered in one dose. We shall have a sufficient amount of vaccines for over 10 million people”, said Bogdan Kirilov. 

Surge registered in daily Covid-19 infections in Bulgaria

1,349 is the number of newly registered coronavirus cases in the country in the past 24 hours out of 11,604 tests performed, Single Coronavirus Information Portal data show. This means that 11.6% of the tests have returned positive.

Plovdiv and Sofia region are back in the red coronavirus zone. This means that in more than half of Bulgaria the number of coronavirus cases exceeds 120 per 100,000 people. In 6 regions the number of infections is over 200 per 100,000, among them Sofia-city. According to the Health Inspectorate no tightening of the measures in Sofia is necessary at this point. In the region of Kyustendil the number of infections is in excess of 400 per 100,000. The average for the country is 161 cases per 100,000.

32 coronavirus patients have died over the past 24 hours, 748 have recovered. The number of active cases is 24,069. 3,513 coronavirus patients are being treated in hospital, 284 of them are in intensive care.

22,776 people in Bulgaria have received their second dose of Covid-19 vaccine. 3,902 doses of vaccine have been administered in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of vaccinations to 81,338. 

Applications for Bulgarian personal documents can be submitted online

Bulgarian citizens abroad can now submit applications for Bulgarian identification documents without an electronic signature, using the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ministry reported.

"The Covid-19 crisis has made it almost impossible and quite complicated to visit a Bulgarian consulate twice in order to apply for and receive documents. Therefore, we offer Bulgarian citizens who have already provided biometric data before obtaining a previous document, to apply for a new one online and pay for the service using a virtual POS terminal, which would allow them to physically visit our front office only to receive the finished document ", Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ekaterina Zaharieva has reported.

The service is available at: https://e-usluga_bds.mfa.bg and at the portal of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Compiled by: Ioan Kolev

English version: Radio Bulgaria’s English Service

You can find all stories and important publications related to Covid-19 in Bulgaria at our special coverage section in English.

You can also follow all latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak and all measures in Bulgaria in 9 more languages at Radio Bulgaria.