Romania sees high coronavirus death toll

A Romanian died from Covid every two and a half minutes in Romania.

Daniela Budu, 03.11.2021, 14:00

Romania has broken record after record in the last few weeks in terms of number of Covid infections and related deaths. On Tuesday, authorities announced almost 600 casualties in 24 hours, most of the victims being unvaccinated. Experts say that the number of deaths will be high in the upcoming days as well, because the IT units are full and many patients are in critical condition.

In spite of the fact that the number of new cases announced by the authorities has slightly decreased, it is still high, and hospitals across the country are treating 20 thousand patients, including children. Foreign medical aid continues to be sent to Romania, but, according to State Secretary Raed Arafat, the pandemic impact on the medical system will be strong for another two or three weeks. Raed Arafat: “We should not be fooled by the decrease in infections. We should expect to see a large number of patients in the intensive care and emergency care units for at least another two or three weeks. This is why we continue these actions. I hope that as many people as possible will get immunized, because it is the only way to prevent future situations like this. So we expect another two or three very difficult weeks for the healthcare system.”

Valeriu Gheorghita, the coordinator of the mass vaccination campaign in Romania, also believes the number of deaths will continue to be high in the upcoming period, because there is a two-week gap between the decrease in infections and the decrease in related casualties. Gheorghita also said that much more people are dying from Covid in Romania than in other European countries, where vaccination rates are higher: “In Romania, the average number of deaths in 1 million people in the last seven days is by more than 50 times higher than in Denmark, where the vaccination rate is over 80% and by almost 68 times higher than in Portugal, where more than 90% of people have been vaccinated”.

According to official data, after a short period of increase, Romanians interest in vaccination has decreased again. Authorities announced on Tuesday less than 80 thousand vaccine doses administered in 24 hours. Also, the number of people who got the first dose is less than half their number a week ago. Only 36.5% of people have been fully vaccinated in Romania so far. (EE)