Radio România Internațional

Tag: effects

  • Romania – the effects of the heat wave

    Romania – the effects of the heat wave

    Romania continues to be under the influence of a tropical air mass. By Wednesday, maximum temperatures of up to 42 degrees Celsius are expected in the shade. Moreover, the minimum temperatures will also be very high and will not drop below 20 degrees C. As of Thursday, temperatures will drop, but then the weather will change, the National Meteorological Administration says. There will be torrential downpours, electrical discharges, isolated hail, more significant amounts of water in all regions. The thermal discomfort will continue to be accentuated, this time against the background of the higher level of humidity.

     

    Due to the extremely high temperatures, tonnage restrictions were introduced on national roads, expressways and highways across Romania. Until Wednesday, vehicles with an authorized weight of more than 12 tons will not be allowed in the traffic. On some road sectors, even cars over 7 and a half tons were not allowed in traffic, and the drivers were dissatisfied. Railway traffic was also affected. Trains run at a lower speed of 20-30 kilometers per hour due to high temperatures on the tracks, and because of this many arrive late at the destination.

     

    The heatwave also affects the health of the population, especially children, the elderly and people with disabilities or chronic diseases. On the streets with hot asphalt and among the buildings radiating heat, even the healthiest body can fail. Without proper hydration, which keeps the body temperature around 37 degrees Celsius, heat cramps, heatstroke, exhaustion or hyperthermia shock can occur, doctors say. In many cities, the authorities have installed first aid points for those who need to leave the house.

     

    Throughout the country, the number of calls to the ambulance service has increased in recent days. The heatwave and drought left thousands of households without drinking water. In some localities, water is distributed according to a well-established schedule, and mayors appeal to the population to consume water responsibly, avoiding watering vegetables or filling swimming pools. To cope with the sweltering temperatures of recent weeks, more and more people are using air conditioners. To cool the temperature in the room and maintain it, the air conditioners must run between 4 and 7 hours a day, which leads to considerably higher electricity bills during this period.

     

    In the context in which electricity consumption has increased a lot, the authorities warn that there is a risk of power outages. In addition, several fluctuations were recorded in different areas of the country, because the electricity grid is overheating. Experts say that such events will become much more frequent in the coming years due to climate warming. Besides Romania, the extremely strong heatwave is currently affecting several countries in South-Eastern Europe. High temperatures were recorded in Athens, Skopje, Belgrade, Sofia, Zagreb, Budapest and Istanbul. (LS)

  • The pandemic and its effects on children

    The pandemic and its effects on children

    The negative psychological impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the adult population is well known. Unfortunately, children also bear the brunt of its effects. Education experts, psychologists and parents alike have been signalling, ever since two years ago, the negative impact that the epidemiological situation has on children, especially due to the isolation they have experienced. Studies have now come to confirm it. Sociologist Ciprian Gradinaru tells us more about a recent report by Save the Children organisation: ”The situation should be analysed in a wider context. Indeed, these past two years have affected children, and not only them. We see that almost half of the children have been feeling lonely, sad, isolated and stressed. They feel this way because they have been isolated from their friends. Also, they had to be part of a completely new education system, which they never tried before. They received less information and their access to education was reduced. That is because some of them have had limited or no access to education during this period. For this reason, almost half of them say they feel unprepared for exams. 8th and 12th graders say they are under a lot of pressure, they are concerned about the upcoming exams and these are situations that experts in education and in related domains have anticipated.”



    In their turn, children seem to describe the situation accurately. Only one third of the 8th grade students say they feel prepared for the national exams. 31% of secondary school children say they have a lot to catch up, while one in two children says homework is more difficult than in previous years. For this reason, more children need assistance from their teachers and parents. 51% of students say this year they have needed more help from their teachers at school, 13% have needed private lessons and 9% have needed the help of a family member.”



    8th gade students say they needed private lessons more than their younger colleagues. Aware of the fact that they have a lot to catch up with in terms of study, they feel frustrated, angry, sad, stressed or tired, the Save the Children report says. Sociologist Ciprian Gradinaru: ”Parents have also been experiencing a stressing period, with a lot of tensions. Their work manner changed, just like their way of interacting and socialising. This is the perfect recipe for tensions within the family, which always affect children.”



    What makes children and adults feel sad and concerned? Ciprian Gradinaru explains: ”The lack of interaction and isolation are the main reasons why children feel this way. It is not just the education system that has changed, but many other aspects of their lives. Holidays were different and also the daily interactions with other children. Online interaction, which was already worrying before the pandemic due to the many hours spent on the internet, has now exploded in terms of time spent online and has brought along many disadvantages. These elements combined — the isolation, spending a lot of time indoors, not doing the things that children normally do — led to tensions, sadness and concern.”


    The study was conducted in March on around 1,900 children aged 9 to 18. (EE)




  • Effects of the vaccination campaign

    Effects of the vaccination campaign

    Considered by experts as the main defense against the novel coronavirus, vaccination gives hope in times of pandemic, given that the year 2020 brought about unprecedented changes in everyones life. In Romania, a large-scale vaccination campaign began in late December, aimed at limiting and even stopping the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. At present, the second phase of the vaccination campaign is under way in Romania, targeting the people over the age of 65 and employees in key areas.



    So far, more than 1,560,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have arrived in Romania, of which more than 1,150,000 have been administered, said the president of the National Committee for the Coordination of Immunization Activities against SARS-CoV-2, Valeriu Gheorghiţă. Most of the doses administered were from Pfizer -BioNTech, but Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines are also available. Next week, Moderna will deliver almost 80,000 more doses, and over 75,000 doses will arrive from AstraZeneca on Thursday. The two companies are going to send more doses according to the established schedule.



    The effects of vaccination have started to emerge. The incidence of SARS-CoV-2 contamination among medical staff and social workers has decreased substantially in the last four weeks, by over 87.7%, as a result of the first vaccination stage, Valeriu Gheorghiţă underlined. He pointed out that the benefits of vaccination in reducing the SARS-CoV-2 infection are substantial, given that the measures to prevent the spread of the virus were also observed in parallel. The figures show that there has been a reduction in the average number of new cases per week, from about 500 cases to less than 50 cases per week. Valeriu Gheorghiţă also referred to the benefits of vaccination registered in medical and social centers as well as in residential ones.



    As regards the vaccination impact among hospitalized patients and the nursing staff in these centers, there has been a 65% reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases in the past four weeks. This effect creates a favorable situation in terms of reducing the risk of disease outbreaks in these residential and social centers, said the president of the National Committee for the Coordination of Immunization Activities against SARS-CoV-2. He also pointed out that, at national level, there are very few cases of people who got infected with the new coronavirus after having received the second vaccine dose, namely about 3,500-3,600 as against almost 700,000 already vaccinated people.



    The authorities are giving priority to providing vaccines to those counties with a high infection rate. They are also going to define the incidence threshold taken into account for the priority allocation of vaccines, then a mechanism will be launched through which new vaccination lines will be opened in those respective counties. (tr. L. Simion)

  • The social implications of the crisis

    The social implications of the crisis


    It’s been about four months
    since the novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan, China, before spreading
    rapidly around the globe, disrupting the lives of people everywhere. The
    pandemic is bound to end at some point, but its effects will be felt deeply.




    A study conducted by the
    Research Institute for Quality of Life of the Romanian Academy warns that
    Romania is faced with two crises at the same time: a health crisis and an economic
    crisis. The institute’s paper, entitled The pandemic and living standards. Social
    protection policies, posits that unlike the health crisis, which has immediate
    effects, the economic crisis has social implications that are already visible
    and will continue to be so for some time. Living standards will suffer
    especially once the health crisis is over or begins to pass, says the research paper,
    emphasising that judging by other economic and social crises faced by Romania in
    the past, it will take at least another five years for the people’s purchasing
    power to recover.




    The study notes that the
    population’s incomes are already lower as a result of the pandemic and that the
    employees on furlough will be worst hit, with more than one million employment
    contracts having already been suspended. People working in informal employment,
    subsistence farmers, whose number is unknown, as well as the persons who have
    recently returned from abroad and who do not have an income are also expected
    to be hit hard by the crisis.




    Sociologists therefore
    propose an increase in unemployment benefits to around 200 euros for the next three
    to six months, which amounts to 75% of the net minimum wage. In the area of
    social assistance, researchers propose a guaranteed minimum income of 200 euros
    for the next three months, an increase in state funding for the emergency aid budgets
    of the local administration in the next three months, the amendment of the social
    assistance law and drafting the sectoral strategies in the social sector for
    the 2021-2027 period based on the new situation.

    The research paper also
    notes that the International Monetary Fund expects Romania’s public deficit to
    reach 8.9% of GDP, the equivalent of some 19 billion euros, and for GDP to see
    a 5% drop in real terms. To help with the public deficit, the paper proposes starting
    urgent talks with the International Monetary Fund and levying a solidarity tax.
    It also recommends a number of policies relating to pensions and salaries, such
    as cancelling or delaying the implementation of the pensions law adopted in
    2019, indexing pensions based on the inflation rate, raising salaries only so
    as to compensate for the inflation rate and the reintroduction of a nationwide unified
    salary scheme in the local administration. (CM)