April 24, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 24.04.2021, 19:26

VACCINE A Vaccination Marathon has kicked
off for three days in Timisoara, western Romania, with a view to giving an
impetus to the immunization campaign, local medical authorities have announced.
500 volunteer physicians, nurses and medical students have got involved in this
campaign during which 10 thousand Pfizer doses are to be administered. The
first drive-in vaccination center was opened in Deva, western Romania on
Saturday, allowing people to get a jab in the parking lot of the local city
mall. 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 currently being treated in hospitals. 22 hundred
Covid infections have been reported in the past 24 hours and 154 fatalities.
About 1380 patients 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.

OSCAR The 93rd Academy
Awards is to take place on Sunday, 23rd April, with a two-month
delay due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Director Alexander Nanau’s film ‘Collective’
is Romania’s proposal for 2021 Academy Awards, and it will be running in the Best
Documentary Feature and the Best International Feature Film sections. A Romania-Luxembourg
production, the film presents the joint efforts of physicians, government
officials and journalists to unearth a major fraud in Romania’s healthcare system,
in the aftermath of the blaze that destroyed the Colectiv night club in
Bucharest in October 2015. ‘Collective’ has been designated the best
documentary by the European Film Awards and by the London Critics’ Circle Film
Awards.

TENNIS Romanian
tennis player Sorana Cirstea on Saturday qualified for the finals of the WTA
tennis tournament in Istanbul with 235 thousand dollars in prize money. The
Romanian clinched a 6-4, 6-4 win against Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine and she will
be up against top-seeded Elise Mertens of Belgium on Sunday. Mertens
outperformed Russian Veronika Kudermetova 6-1, 6-4.

(bill)