Bulgaria joins Digital Green Certificate program

Bulgaria is one of the first countries in the European Union to join the Digital Green Certificate program at its start on June 1st, outgoing Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said after his participation in the EU summit in Porto. He added that the first tests for the Bulgarian certificate have already been carried out together with several countries, and Sweden confirmed that it had read and validated the data. The digital green certificate will contain evidence that a traveler has been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, received a recent negative test result, or has recovered from the illness. Boyko Borissov also said that on Monday Bulgaria will receive 300,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines, and another 400,000 during the week.

1,123 new Covid-19 cases registered for a day

1,123 new cases of coronavirus have been registered for a day after 15,000 tests, according to the data of the Single Coronavirus Information Portal. The share of positive samples is below 8%. The highest number of newly infected people was registered in Sofia - 215, followed by Varna - 123 and Plovdiv - 113. There were 2,381 recoveries in the past 24 hours and 86 people lost their lives. 5,855 patients are in hospital as 570 of them are in intensive care wards. The active coronavirus cases are 44,739. Nearly 410,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus since the beginning of the epidemic. Yesterday, more than 38,000 doses of vaccines were administered, bringing the total number to 922,371.

Calm summer expected, if no new strain emerged

"The third wave of Covid-19 is fading," Prof. Nikolay Vitanov, mathematician of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, has told Nova TV. He said that the pressure on the healthcare care system was declining together with the number of active cases. According to him, in a week it would become clear whether we have managed to "break" this positive trend during the Easter holidays. Prof. Nikolay Vitanov forecasts a calm summer if no new coronavirus strain appeared. In order to avoid a new wave of coronavirus, 70% of Bulgarians need to get vaccinated, he added. According to him, these levels would be reached at the end of July.

Compiled by: Diana Tsankova

English: Alexander Markov

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