December 2, 2021
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 02.12.2021, 13:55
OMICRON — Three people in Romania may be infected with Omicron, the new of Covid-19 variant, after having tested positive upon being flown back to the country from South Africa. All thee people, who travelled by the same plane, are in quarantine and under constant medical monitoring. Authorities say that samples have been sent to labs for sequencing. There are currently 7 labs that provide sequencing services in Romania and the Health Ministry wants to have more of them in order to detect the Omicron variant faster. Some 1,149 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the last 24 hours and 66 related deaths, of which 8 from a previous date. The infection rate in the capital Bucharest has dropped to 1.71 cases per thousand inhabitants. More than 7.4 million Romanians have been fully vaccinated in the country.
REPATRIATION — 127 Romanians are about to be repatriated from Morocco, where all passenger flights have been suspended for two weeks in an attempt to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron, the Romanian Foreign Ministry announced. Also, 53 European passengers will be on board the plane. Representatives of the diplomatic mission in Morocco are in touch with the Romanian citizens who asked for support and will assist them with the repatriation formalities.
NATO – The Romanian foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu is taking part on December 2 and 3 in the 28th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). This year’s meeting, held in Stockholm, takes place in the context of tensions sparked by the migrant crisis at the Belarusian border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, and the conflicts in eastern Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh. Aurescu will also take part in two working sessions, one focusing on ways to improve OSCE’s capacity to solve conflicts and another one on the evolutions in Afghanistan and their implications for the OSCE region.
UNEMPLOYMENT – The unemployment rate in Romania in the month of October stood at 5.3%, the same level as in the month before, according to the National Statistics Institute. In terms of gender, the unemployment rate among men exceeded by 0.9% that of women. The unemployment rate among young people aged 15 to 24 remains high – 19.6%.
HANDBALL — Romania is taking part in the 2021 IHC Women’s World Championship that kicked off in Spain. The Romanians, part of group C, will play Iran on Friday, Kazakhstan on December 5 and Norway on December 7. The first three out of 32 national teams qualify to the main groups. This is the 25th participation in a world championship for the Romanian squad that has not missed any edition. They won gold in 1962, silver in 1973 and 2005 and bronze in 2015. (EE)
