August 2, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsroom, 02.08.2021, 18:03

COVID-19. The
number of new Covid-19 cases in Romania is growing. Last week, the total number
of infections was almost two thirds higher than in the previous week. On Monday,
137 new cases were reported from 12,600 tests. The number of coronavirus
patients in hospitals stays at over 400, with the number of patients in intensive
care also slightly on the rise in recent days. Five new COVID-related deaths were
also reported. In spite of the warnings regarding an imminent new wave of
infections, the vaccination rate dropped slightly last week. Romania has only
now managed to get 5 million people vaccinated, a target originally set for
early June.

Attack. Romania
firmly condemns and describes as utterly unacceptable last Thursday’s drone
attack on the Mercer Street oil tanker off the coast of Oman, which killed 2
people, including the ship’s Romanian captain, the foreign ministry says in a
news release. According to the ministry, in light of information presented by
Romania’s international partners indicating that the attack was deliberate and
was coordinated from Iran, Romania is requesting the Iranian authorities to
provide explanations regarding the incident. Iran’s ambassador to Bucharest was
invited at the ministry to this end. Meanwhile, the US and UK announced they
were joining Israel and preparing a quick and coordinated response. Britain
also summoned Iran’s ambassador in London to the Foreign Office. Tehran however denies the
accusations, which it dismisses as ungrounded.

Roma Holocaust. The 2nd
of August is Roma Holocaust Memorial Day in Romania, marked since 2020. The
Romanian Foreign Ministry pays tribute to the Roma Holocaust victims and
emphasises that the suffering of the Roma in Nazi concentration camps during WWII
was for a long time unknown to the general public, which helped propagate
prejudice against this community. According to the final report of the
International Committee Studying the Holocaust in Romania, around 11,000 Roma
ethnics died, out of the nearly 25,000 deported in Transdniester, a
Russian-speaking breakaway region in today’s Republic of Moldova. Also, on 2
August 1944, around 3,000 Roma were killed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. A
total of 500,000 ethnic Roma were killed in Europe during the Holocaust.

Tourism. Romania saw 805,000 tourist arrivals in June 2021, up 141% compared to
June last year, with foreign visitors accounting for 8.7% of that number. According to the National Institute for Statistics 81% of the foreign tourists
who visited Romania were from Europe, the majority of whom (71%) from the
European Union. The average stay in the first six months of the year was 2-3
days in the case of foreign visitors.

Olympics. The Romanian
rowers Cătălin Chirilă and Victor Mihalachi on Monday qualified into the
semi-finals of the men’s canoe double 1,000 m at the Tokyo Olympics, after
coming in third in the quarter-finals. Cătălin Chirilă and Victor Mihalachi won
the bronze medal at this year’s European Championships in Poznan, while
Mihalachi also won two 2 world championship titles in this event in 2010 and 2014. In
the history of Olympic Games,
Romania has 34 kayaking and canoeing medals, including 10 gold, 10 silver and
14 bronze. However, the last time a Romanian rower won an Olympic medal was 21
years ago at the Sydney Games. (CM)