The Romanian government decided during Thursdays session to establish night quarantine measures at the weekend in those localities where the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate exceeds 6 cases per thousand. So far, this threshold was 4 per thousand inhabitants. Also in these localities, businesses will have working hours with the public between 5 a.m. and 6 p.m. There is an exception, though. Vaccinated people can leave their homes and travel to areas where the Covid incidence threshold is higher than 6 per thousand inhabitants, but they need to present the green certificate attesting to their vaccination. At the same time, the Romanian government has decided that minors up to 12 years will no longer need the green certificate for access inside public spaces. Until now, the age limit was 6 years. The Prime Minister Florin Cîţu said that, regardless of the restrictions, vaccination must be a priority for as many Romanians as possible.
Florin Cîţu: “The only solution to solve the pandemic problem is vaccination, the green certificate. When a restriction or other measure appears, we close at 8 p.m., but restrictions do not solve the pandemic problem. The pandemic problem is solved only by vaccination and that is what I will continue to repeat, on and on: if we want to get over the pandemic, we have to get vaccinated – it is very simple. I think it is much more important that this effort be multiplied by the responsibility of each of us”.
Florin Cîţu believes that compulsory vaccination should be the last resort to stop the pandemic, after the other measures announced. The prime minister says that if this decision is eventually made, the authorities should think of what happens to those who, despite the mandatory vaccination rule, still refuse to get vaccinated. He added that a bill on the compulsory vaccination of a certain category of persons might be introduced in Parliament, among whom medical staff and teachers. Meanwhile, the authorities announced that the threshold of 10 million vaccine doses administered in Romania since the start of the vaccination campaign, on December 27, 2020, has been exceeded.
All in all more than 5.4 million people have been vaccinated, of whom about 5.3 million have been fully vaccinated. The increasing number of cases boosted the vaccination campaign, so that this week, in one single day, twice as many people as compared to the previous period were immunized, most of them with the first dose.
Over the past days the number of people contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 has grown alarmingly, as well as of Covid-related deaths. ICUs across Romania are packed and some of those with serious forms of Covid-19 in this 4th wave of the pandemic are children. The National Committee for Emergency Situations has announced that, as of Sunday, Romania enters the yellow scenario following the surge in the number of contaminations. (LS)
