July 4, 2020
A roundup of news
Newsroom, 04.07.2020, 14:06
COVID-19 Ro — The Romanian government is working on a draft law which should allow the authorities to continue to isolate or quarantine the people infected with the new coronavirus, after the publishing of a Constitutional Court decision in the Official Gazette according to which patients can no longer be kept in hospital without their consent. The government is going to discuss the new law next week. For the moment, isolation and quarantine are no longer an obligation but a recommendation, and more and more hospitalized people have applied for being discharged. Still valid though is an article from the Criminal Code on thwarting the fight against diseases, and those who transmit the virus will have to assume the consequences of their acts, the authorities said. Doctors warn that infected people with little or no symptoms at all risk infecting other people if they do not observe isolation measures. The latest figures published by the Strategic Communication Group in Bucharest show more than 28 thousand cases of COVID-19 infection and 1,708 deaths. The number of Romanian citizens from abroad who have died of COVID-19 has reached 122.
COVID-19 world — The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world has exceeded 11.2 million, with the number of deaths nearing 530 thousand. As many as 6.4 million people have recovered from coronavius infection, shows the online platform Worldometers.info. The US continues to report an increased number of COVID-19 contaminations reaching a total number of 2.9 million cases. More than 132 thousand Americans have died from corona infection. At the same time, the EC on Friday gave its conditional approval for the use of antiviral Remdesivir in severe COVID-19 patients following an accelerated review process, making it the region’s first authorized therapy to treat the virus, AFP reports. “We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to secure efficient treatments or vaccine against the coronavirus,” said Stella Kyriakides, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, in a statement. In Latin America, Anvisa, the authority regulating the Brazilian medical system, approved, also on Friday, the start of clinical studies for a possible vaccine against the coronavirus developed by the Chinese company Sinovac. The announcement was made in the context in which Brazil has exceeded the threshold of 1.5 million cases of Covid-19 infection, being the second hardest hit country, after the US. More than 63,000 Brazilians have died from coronavirus infection.
Theater — The International Theater Festival in Sibiu (in central Romania), held online for the first time due to the pandemic, starts Saturday the series of free rebroadcasting of the shows and events of this year’s edition which unfolded between June 12 and 21. Rebroadcasting of the shows will take place over the period July-December, exclusively on the festival’s website (www.sibfest.ro/fits-online). The first shows rebroadcast on Saturday are ‘Magic tales’ and ‘The bull and the rabbit’ by Marian Ralea. Other shows that spectators can watch on Saturday are ‘After the battle’ by Pippo Delbono or the first part of the show ‘Brothers and Sisters’ directed by Lev Dodin. A fado music concert will be rebroadcast on Saturday evening.
US — Romania’s response to all the major challenges of this period is solidarity, said President Klaus Iohannis at the reception party held to mark the US Independence Day at the American Embassy in Bucharest. Klaus Iohannis also said that Romania remained firmly committed to supporting a strong trans-Atlantic relation and pointed out that Romania would always be a strategic and stalwart ally of the US. The PM Ludovic Orban said that Bucharest would continue to strengthen its relationship with Washington and would continue to be the US’ trustworthy partner. Democracy, human rights and the rule of law are the pillars of trust on which Romania and the US have built their strategic partnership along the years, said the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu, in a message conveyed on the US Independence Day. Also the interim speaker of the Senate Robert Cazanciuc conveyed a message on the occasion, underlining the constant and privileged relationship between Romanian and the US, which is one of the main coordinates of Bucharest’s foreign policy in a period of accelerated changes. In turn, the US Ambassador to Bucharest, Adrian Zuckerman, underlined that Washington remained committed to helping improve the rule of law in Romania as well as to ensuring the country’s sovereignty and security. (tr. L. Simion)
