PM Citu: Romanians are free to protest as long as they don't break the law

Prime Minister Florin Citu on Monday stated that Romanians are free to protest as long as they do not violate the legislation in force, adding that the new measures taken to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 were triggered by the fact that hospitals are "very crowded." "Romanians are free to protest as long as they do not violate the in force legislation. (...) We have the right to have an opinion in Romania, even if we have different opinions. For me, it is very important to continue with the vaccination campaign, it is very important to find the best measures to help Romanians. The hospitals are very crowded, at this point, that's why we have taken these measures. (...) People must respect the law. We must all respect the law. (...) I understand Romanians, that, after one year of pandemic, they got tired. We are all tired. We've been fighting the pandemic for a year and we've made every effort. We've ordered more doses of vaccine than we need just to make sure that, if necessary, we will have it next year too. And if we don't need it, then we will be able to export, because we have to help the population around Romania. It is not enough to vaccinate only the citizens of Romania if we want to get rid of the pandemic. We will make all the efforts and I am ready to sit at the table with anyone who comes up with solutions to help Romanians in this difficult period," said Citu, before the meeting of the Executive Bureau of PNL (the National Liberal Party), in which the head of DSU (the Department for Emergency Situations), Raed Arafat, also participates. He underscored that the measures taken last week are aimed at slowing down the spread of the virus. "These measures are unique in Europe, because they depend on the degree of incidence. Throughout Europe such measures are being taken for the entire country, as a whole, while in Romania they are being taken depending on the incidence precisely because we know that there is already fatigue in society after a year of fighting this pandemic. But we did not overcome it yet so that we still need to make an effort to get through this period together. We have taken these measures to slow down the spread of the virus and also to be able to speed up the vaccination campaign," the Prime Minister explained. According to Citu, the number of people vaccinated against COVID will increase to 100,000 per day, in April. "Compared to the initial plan, if this vaccine delivery schedule is maintained, we will be able to talk about vaccinating 10 million citizens in August, instead of September. We have advanced things by a month, but everything depends on us. Let's go get vaccinated," the Prime Minister said. In his opinion, PSD (the Social Democratic Party) comes with "slightly confusing" messages, but he is ready to listen to the opinion of the specialists from this party. AGERPRES (RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Claudia Stanescu, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)