Bulgaria could soon abolish COVID pass

A high-ranking government expert has said the green pass could be abolished by March as its political price is becoming too high for the new government.

The Prime Minister’s Pandemic Adviser, Professor Radka Argirova, predicts that Omicron’s peak in the country will be between 8-10 February, after which the green certificate can be abolished. The virologist told Nova TV that the green pass would be revoked when the number of intensive care beds falls below 5%. She said this could happen within the next six weeks.

Last week’s data shows a decline in new infections to nearly 8,000 a day. However, the real number could be three times higher because most infected do not get tested. Bulgaria has the lowest percentage of vaccinated citizens in the EU (30%) and is second in terms of COVID deaths per capita after Peru.

Reasons behind the situation include serious political mistakes, broad distrust of institutions, fake news on social networks and doctors that are sceptical about vaccines.

The result is nearly 34,000 deaths so far in a population of 6.6 million, more than 0.5% of the Bulgarian population. The government announced that it would remove the pass when Bulgaria reaches 60% vaccinated or only 5% of intensive care beds are occupied.

The first goal is impossible to achieve, and the second allows for political interpretations.

According to health ministry data, Bulgaria has 2,060 beds for intensive care and nearly 1,500 beds with mechanical ventilation. This allows the abolition of the green pass when reaching 100 occupied beds in intensive care, while currently the number is 560. The first four waves of the pandemic demonstrated there are only resources to cope with 900 beds full.

Distrust of the authorities and the small number of vaccinated put serious pressure on the new Bulgarian government, backed by an unstable quadruple coalition and facing several crises at once. The opposition to the “green certificate” was introduced in parliament by the far-right pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party, which calls for the country’s withdrawal from the EU and NATO.

Nationalists have skillfully used restrictive measures to undermine Bulgarians’ trust in the EU and link Western values ​​to the lack of freedom that Bulgarians experienced during the totalitarian communist regime.

According to unofficial information given to EURACTIV, the support for the nationalists is significantly increasing due to Bulgarians fatigue from the restrictive measures.

On 3 February, the former ruling GERB party joined Vazrazhdane and attacked the legality of green certificates before the Constitutional Court. They were joined by the populist “There is such a people” party, which is part of the ruling coalition but is sceptical of vaccines and certificates.

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov is facing a situation in which a large part of society boycotts certificates, which are an annoying formality for most businesses. The control of the health authorities is not particularly tight, which makes the political cost of maintaining them too high in relation to their benefits.

Indicative of the situation was the establishment of a commune of German anti-vaxers in the largest Bulgarian city on the Black Sea – Varna. They announced that they like life in Bulgaria because it is free, while life in Germany is not.

(Krassen Nikolov | EURACTIV.bg)