March 12, 2021
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Newsroom, 12.03.2021, 16:19
PENSIONS Public and private sector employees may continue working until the age of 70 if they choose to, the Romanian labour minister Raluca Turcan announced. She explained that unlike private sector staff, in the public sector the employees reaching retirement age who continue working cannot receive both public pensions and salaries. Another bill drafted by the labour ministry concerns an increase of the bonuses paid to new parents who stay on parental leave for less than 6 months, from 130 euros to around 300 euros.
VACCINE Romania temporarily suspends the use of an AstraZeneca vaccine batch, until the European Medicines Agency completes its assessment. The National Vaccine Coordination Committee decided however to continue using the doses from batches where problems have not been reported. The decision comes after other European countries reported severe side effects and even deaths among people having received AstraZeneca doses from a particular batch. Romania received 81,600 doses from the AstraZeneca batch no. ABV 2856, and has used over 77,000 of them. The remaining shots are temporarily suspended, until the European Medicines Agency completes its assessment. Today, over 100,000 doses of Moderna vaccine reach Romania. Also, in order to step up the vaccine rollout and contain the pandemic, on Thursday the last stage of the vaccination programme was launched in places with more than 4.5 infections per 1,000 people. On Monday the 3rd vaccination phase, targeting the general public, begins across the country. On Friday Romania reported over 5,000 new COVID-19 cases in 24 hours. 108 COVID-related deaths were also reported, and 1,166 patients are in intensive care.
PANDEMIC The European Medicines Agency has approved the use of a 4th COVID-19 vaccine in the EU—the single-shot Johnson & Johnson. Meanwhile, as a precaution, 9 countries have suspended the use of AstraZeneca vaccines over blood clot fears. These countries are Austria, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Norway, Iceland and Denmark. The first to do so was Austria, following the death of a person from multiple thrombosis. Other countries using this vaccine, including Spain, Sweden and the UK, say they had no problems of this kind. 17 EU member states have received doses from the batch in question. The European Commission urges member states to follow the advice of the European Medicines Agency, which says that at this point nothing points to higher blood clot risks in people having received the Covid-19 vaccine. Astrazeneca insists that its vaccine has been tested extensively and is well tolerated. On Thursday night, in the US, the worst-hit country in the world, president Joe Biden gave his first prime-time address, marking 1 year since the pandemic was declared officially. Biden announced that his goal of having 100 million Americans immunised in the first 100 days of his term in office will be reached sooner than planned. According to worldometers updates, over 119 million people have caught the coronavirus so far. Of them, around 94.7 million have recovered and at least 2.6 million people died.
ENVIRONMENT The environment ministry has today launched a campaign called Green Friday, calling on Romanians to switch from automobiles to walking, cycling or using public transport every Friday. The point is primarily to reduce pollution in big cities. Minister Barna Tanczos explained that 60% of urban pollution is caused by automobiles.
ECONOMY In Romania, the trade balance deficit in January was nearly 1.2 billion euros, down since last January, with imports dropping 5.8% and exports 4.9%. According to data made public on Friday by the National Statistics Institute, exports amounted to 5.4 billion euro, and imports to 6.6 billion euro. In related news, the INS announced on Friday that in January the average net salary in Romania was nearly 700 euro, down 6.2% since the previous month. The highest salaries in Romania are paid in IT&C, and the smallest in the hospitality industry. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
