Bulgaria bans fans from stadiums as virus surges

Bulgaria has banned football fans from stadiums and shut clubs and bars just weeks after they had reopened as it battles a spike in coronavirus cases, health officials said on Thursday.

The Balkan country saw a daily record of 240 new infections on Thursday, bringing the total number of cases to 6,342, including 259 deaths.

Until recently, Bulgaria had been only lightly affected by the pandemic and had eased lockdown measures before most other European countries.

The new restrictions will ban spectators from all sports events both indoors and outdoors, Health Minister Kiril Ananiev told a press conference.

"The number of new cases has not stopped increasing over the past ten days, going over the critical limit of 200 in 24 hours," Ananiev said.

"A trend towards more cases is possible in the coming days."

However, Ananiev said there was still capacity in the health system to deal with the pandemic.

"It has turned out that discipline is not our strongest quality, which has made it necessary to reintroduce some measures," Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said in a statement after a meeting of the coronavirus taskforce.

Night clubs, discos and bars will also be shut again, having only...