Bulgarian schools ready to open doors on September 15

All 2,400 schools in Bulgaria are ready for the start of the new school year on September 15 amid emergency epidemic situation, this country’s Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev said. Minister  Valchev attended the official opening of the academic year at Trakia University in Stara Zagora. Nearly 300 pupils are to begin the new school year with distance learning. They will study under a distance electronic form and will stay at home over concerns about their health condition, BNR Stara Zagora informs. As for the flu holidays, Minister Valchev contends that the distance online form of learning will be used during such periods. 

Parents protests in front of Education Ministry building against mandatory wearing of masks in schools

United Parents organization has launched an initiative against the use of school isolation rooms and mandatory wearing of masks in closed school areas. According to Mihaela Bozhankova who is one of the organizers of the protest, no one wants the measures to be cancelled. They insist that they are advisable only. On the other hand, “plastic barriers are deprived of meaning”, because if a child shows symptoms of disease, this would mean that it was already in contact with all its classmates, the protesters contend. In response, Bulgaria’s Minister of Education and Science replied that Bulgaria has one of the most liberal regimes related to wearing of face protection masks. On September 15 another protest is expected to take place in front of the Education Ministry building at 6 pm.

Bulgarian schools to receive disinfection materials

133 elementary schools in Bulgaria are to receive sanitary insoles and disinfectants. The donation was given to the Bulgarian Red Cross and will later be distributed to the schools across the country. Meanwhile, it became clear that over EUR 450,000 was donated to the Bulgarian Red Cross via text messages since the beginning of the pandemic.

2.9% of all PCR tests performed over past 24 hours return positive

27 new Covid-19 cases have been registered in this country over the past 24 hours, or 2.9% out of all PCR tests performed, indicate Single Information Portal data. 3 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll up to 720. 9 have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries since the start of the pandemic up to 12,767. The number of active cases is 4,431. 740 patients with coronavirus are being treated in hospital, 53 of them are in intensive care. 

Decline in Bulgarian imports and exports continues on account of pandemic

Bulgarian exports and imports have continued their decline, National Statistical Institute data show. Because of the pandemic Bulgaria’s total exports went down in July by 10.7% to 2.446 billion euro compared to a year earlier. The country’s total imports went down by 15.9% to 2.564 billion euro. The foreign trade balance was negative in July at 119 million euro, compared to a deficit of 312 million euro in July 2019. Over the first seven months of 2020 Bulgaria’s total exports went down by 7.5% to 15.9 billion euro compared to the same period of 2019, while imports shrank by 12.8% down to 17 billion euro.  The total foreign trade balance from January to July was at a deficit of 1.1 billion euro.

Compiled by Ioan Kolev