April 24, 2021
Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 24.04.2021, 13:55
VACCINE Roughly 15 hundred people got
the vaccine on Friday in a Vaccination Marathon, which kicked off for three
days in Timisoara, western Romania, with a view to giving an impetus to the
immunization campaign, the local medical authorities have announced. 500
volunteer physicians have got involved in this campaign during which 10
thousand Pfizer doses are to be administered and even more if needed. 90
thousand vaccine doses have been administered in the past 24 hours nationwide.
Almost 3 million people have been vaccinated all over Romania since the vaccine
rollout kicked off in late December and 1.7 million of these have got the
second jab. The number of new Covid-19 cases is on a downward trend and so is
the number of people treated in hospitals, which now are under 11 thousand. 14
hundred are in intensive care.
MEASURES The Committee for Emergency
Situations of the city of Bucharest has extended the containment measures for
the Covid-19 pandemic. The night curfew between 22 and 5 hours is still in
place during the weekdays and between 20 and 5 hours at weekend. On April 8th
the government extended the state of alert on Romania’s territory for 30 more
days, starting April 13th. The night curfew is to be lifted though
during the Orthodox Easter over May 1st and 2nd and
Ramadan over May 8th and 9th.
RATING A decision by the Fitch rating
agency to reconfirm Romania’s position among the low-risk countries in terms of
investment, has been based on its moderate public debt and the positive GDP
development per capita, says the Finance Ministry in Bucharest. Fitch Ratings
has affirmed Romania’s rating at ‘BBB minus’ with negative outlook. According
to the agency, the negative outlook reflects uncertainty regarding the
implementation of policies to address medium-term fiscal imbalances and the
impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Romania’s public finances. The plans of
the present administration include a series of fiscal and macro reforms to
anchor medium-term fiscal sustainability, but a weak track record of fiscal
consolidation and very high budget rigidities constitute key public finance
challenges. Fitch expects Romania’s economy to expand by an average of 5.8% in
2021-22 thanks to the strong investment momentum and a gradual recovery in
exports and private consumption.
TENNIS The world’s
third tennis player, Romanian Simona Halep is up against Arina Sabalenka of
Belarus in the semifinals of the WTA tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, a
competition with 570 thousand dollars in prize money. The head-to-head is 3-1
to Halep, who outperformed Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova in the quarter finals.
In the other semifinal game, Australian Ashleigh Barty plays Elina Svitolina of
Ukraine. Another Romanian player, Sorana Cirstea is today playing Ukrainian
Marta Kostyuk for a place in the finals of the WTA tournament in Istanbul.
(bill)
