COVID-19 pandemic in Romania

Romanian authorities on Friday reported 13,854 new cases of people infected with COVID-19 in the last 24 hours while Thursday to Friday saw a new record death toll of 385 from COVID, raising the total death toll in the country to 38,927.

The Public Health Department on Friday said the number of infections of COVID-19 in Bucharest had increased to 12.24 per thousand.

Nine people died on Friday when a fire broke out in an intensive care unit at a Romanian hospital treating COVID-19 patients, officials said, the country's third deadly hospital fire in less than a year, Reuters reported. Firefighters extinguished the fire at the hospital in the eastern city of Constanta at around 0755 GMT, having brought in additional teams from nearby counties.

Education Minister Sorin Cimpeanu emphasized, on Monday, that the decision regarding classes is taken weekly depending on the infection rate recorded on Friday and, presently, only the units in 13 localities must run classes online, according to the regulations in force.

The head of the Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat, draws attention to the fact that 92.8% of the deaths recorded in the past week occurred among unvaccinated persons, and 5% in persons who only had one dose of vaccine instead of a complete scheme.

“Thank you” to Romania for helping with the fires

In the week ending on May 16, 2021, 32.1% of the total cases of COVID-19 in Romania were reported by Bucharest City and the counties of Cluj, Prahova, Timis, Arges, according to the National Public Health Institute (INSP). According to the weekly supervision report, 34% of all deaths were recorded in Bucharest City, and the counties of Prahova, Bihor, Cluj, and Alba.

Minister of Health Vlad Voiculescu proved "enough and to spare" that he is not the "right" man to lead the most important field in the current unprecedented medical crisis caused by the pandemic of COVID-19, that he causes "only confusion", he does not comply with the rules mandatory for others and "argues with everyone", and consequently he must "urgently" leave office, the PSD deputies say in

President Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday that a national quarantine is not desired and called for compliance with the restrictions and for the speeding up of the vaccination campaign. "Decisions are made nationwide and we do not want national quarantine for Romania, because it does not solve the problem and situations differ in each area.

President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that the authorities don't consider implementing any lockdown measures for Easter, and the state of alert will be extended this week.      He added that the circulation restrictions during the night could come into force earlier, at 22:00 instead of 23:00, as they currently are.

The management of the Sibiu County Emergency Clinical Hospital (SCJU) announces that it will start an investigation at the ICU ward where there are patients with COVID-19, after a former employee claimed in the local press, under protection of anonymity, that he killed sick people.