Gheorghita, on 10 million target: We can go back to normal even without reaching this target

COVID-19 vaccination campaign coordinator Valeriu Gheorghita said on Tuesday that Romanians could drop the restrictions established in the pandemic context even if the target of 10 million vaccinated citizens is not reached. He detailed that added to the vaccinated persons there are those who had COVID-19 and present short-term immunity. "In theory, we can go back to normality even without reaching this target, as we don't have at the moment data showing the real number of the persons who have gone through this infection. We know that the protection after the natural infection stands somewhere at three, or, according to other data, up to six months. Obviously, this type of immunity acquired through illness is important on short term, it contributes to the epidemiological control, nonetheless, on long term it doesn't help. Vaccination remains the only long term efficient solution, ensuring protection to the situation of epidemiological aggravation," he also said. Gheorghita explained that "if from an epidemiological point of view, things have a favourable development, we mustn't get stuck in this 10 million vaccinated persons figure." "In the end, what interests us through vaccination as well as through restrictive measures is to have as less persons getting sick, as little as possible people who lose their life to this disease and get back to normality in safety conditions," he said. Prime Minister Florin Citu was saying on April 22 that dropping the sanitary protection mask could be considered after 10 million Romanians are immunised. Moreover, the Prime Minister said last week that "we have all the conditions to reach 5 million vaccinated people before June 1." When asked about this target, Gheorghita said: "The vaccination campaign is not a mathematical matter, as we still have some unknown factors, depending on the addressability and the desire of people to get vaccinated." At the same time, he said "we mustn't set some rigid landmarks, these are estimations." He pointed out that the objective of the National Committee on the Coordination of COVID-19 Vaccination Activities is the creation of a system through which "if anyone wants to get vaccinated today, they should be able to do that until evening." AGERPRES (RO - author: Oana Ghita, editor: Florin Marin; EN - editor: Adina Panaitescu)