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| - Bulgarian health authorities eased coronavirus restrictions on Thursday, three days before April 4 a general election and despite a raging third wave that has seen hospital admissions spike. "In recent days we have been at the peak of the third wave but infection rates are starting to go down," Health Minister Kostadin Angelov said. He confirmed the ministry will go ahead with the easing and allow restaurant and cafe terraces to re-open after a ten-day closure along with cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and other recreation venues that will be allowed to operate at 30-percent capacity. Creches and kindergartens will also re-open next Monday and schools will resume in-person lessons with alternate shifts after spring break on April 12. "We have to find a balance between people's physical and mental health", Angelov said in justifying the decision. However, the easing has already been slammed by medical staff, overwhelmed by a new influx of hospital admissions. A record 10,093 coronavirus patients are currently being treated in hospitals in the country of less than seven million people and infection rates in the capital Sofia have reached 1,017 per 100,000 inhabitants. But chief health inspector Angel Kunchev said Thursday that even if infection rates from the British variant were higher and a larger number of patients needed hospital treatment, the mortality rates were lower than during the virus' second wave last autumn. "When we close, half of the people accuse us of depriving them of culture and sports, when we open the other half starts to insult us," Kunchev said. vs/ds/jsk/bp
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