USR's Barna: IntMin's decision, as wrong as it is popular

Save Romania Union (USR) leader Dan Barna believes that there is a risk that the special measures imposed by the pandemic to be "artificially prolonged" through the decision to send policemen to massively interact with the vulnerable categories. "The state of emergency should remain an exceptional measure and not be prolonged by any second more than needed. I have already said in public a couple of times in the past days that we will vote for the decree on the prolongation of the state of emergency. We are doing this because it's obvious that we haven't overcome yet the toughest phase of the pandemic and we still need special measures. However, the state of emergency shouldn't be prolonged artificially through such decision made out of political calculations, which risks to produce more damage than any immediate benefit. Such decision was made last night by Minister of Interior Marcel Vela, who announced that, for Easter, he will send policemen to massively interact with those vulnerable categories that need protection," the USR leader said in a post on Facebook. He added the decision of the Interior Minister is "as wrong as it is popular." "All that this strategy announced by Minister Vela does is to question the precise central element of the fight against Covid-19: social distancing. By creating such exceptions we risk to create the prerequisites for an expansion of the epidemic and, from here, to waste in such an irresponsible manner all the effort that the Romanians made in the past month," said Dan Barna. Minister Marcel Vela announced on Tuesday that the distribution of the Holy Light brought from Jerusalem on Saturday evening, April 18, shall be made by volunteers from the parishes and by law enforcement teams and the already existing patrol squads, starting with 8.00 pm. He also showed that the Easter prosophora can be taken on Friday and Saturday from the specially arranged places in front of the churches and that the faithful need to write in the compulsory statement the name of the church in their residence area. AGERPRES (RO author: Irinela Visan, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)