National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Wearing masks will be obligatory again in Spain's hospitals and other healthcare facilities from Wednesday, the health ministry said on Monday as the country faces a flu outbreak.

The decree was announced after a meeting between the health ministry and representatives of the country's regions, who control their own health systems.

The mandatory use of protective masks at hospitals and other healthcare facilities was lifted on Monday, marking the end of measures aimed at stopping the spread of Covid, which has dropped sharply in recent months. 

The new confirmed cases of coronavirus in Bulgaria for the last 24 hours are 377, according to the data of the Unified Information Portal.

3,806 tests were performed, which means that the proportion of positive results is 9.9 percent.

4 patients with confirmed coronavirus infection have died.

In the last 24 hours, 2,223 tests for the coronavirus were carried out in Bulgaria and 552 infected people were found, that is, nearly 25 percent of the tests were positive, according to the current data in the Unified Information Portal.

Physical distance, wearing protective masks, personal hygiene, ventilation and disinfection, measures at the workplace, temporary ban on entering the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria are the anti-epidemic measures that will come into force depending on the spread of Covid-19 in Bulgaria.

"Each GP has two to three cases per patient with coronavirus per day, which shows a real incidence of about 9,000 people."

This is what Dr. Miroslav Spasov - personal physician and pediatrician - told BNR. "The figure in the official statistics is small because of the missing opportunity for testing", he clarified.

Ljubljana – Slovenia confirmed 941 new cases of coronavirus over the weekend, an increase of more than 40% over the previous weekend. One patient with Covid-19 died during the weekend. There are currently 45 patients at regular wards hospitalised with Covid as their primary condition and another eight in intensive care.

"A new COVID wave is certainly beginning". This was stated by the pulmonologist and deputy from "Democratic Bulgaria" Dr. Alexander Simidchiev on Nova TV.

"The rate of increase in new cases on a weekly basis is 50% from last week, and on a two-week basis it is 140% from two weeks ago," he said.

With the number of weekly coronavirus infections, which was 26,635 last week, having surpassed 57,000, experts once again warn citizens to get their booster shots if six to eight months have passed since the final dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Ljubljana – The latest Covid-19 statistics show the number of cases steadily rising, as the number of new infections registered over the weekend increased by almost 40% on a weekly basis to 641, while overall hospitalisations have declined. There is a higher number of patients in intensive care, though, and three persons with Covid-19 have died since Friday.