November 26, 2021
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 26.11.2021, 13:55
COVID-19 – Schools in Romania have started receiving
non-invasive rapid COVID tests. The first batch of 6.5 million tests was
distributed on Thursday, Education Minister, Sorin Cîmpeanu, said, adding that
testing will be performed in schools wherever teachers and willing and
infrastructure allows it. If schools refuse to do the testing, the children
will be tested at home, under the supervision of their parents, legal guardians
or an adult. The rapid testing of pre-school and school children is due to start
next week. Testing will be performed twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, in
the case of children who attend classes physically. 1,958 new cases of COVID-19
infection were reported on Friday, in addition to 160 related fatalities, of
which 45 prior to the reference period. 1,314 patients are currently in
intensive care. The National Public Health Institute announced that 70% of
people diagnosed with COVID-19 in the last week were unvaccinated. Since the
start of the vaccination campaign, some 7.7 million people have received at
least one shot of the anti-COVID-19 vaccine.
FORGERIES – Romanian prosecutors have made new arrests as part
of their investigation into the forged green certificates issued by a
vaccination center at Petea border crossing point. A medical nurse and two
other people were detained for 24 hours. They are suspected of having
facilitated contact between people who wanted green certificates and forgers
themselves, who were indicted last week. The suspects acted as middlemen by
identifying people seeking to obtain vaccination certificates without having to
take the vaccine itself, demanding and receiving sums of up to 300 Euro. The
money was then divided among the employees of the vaccination center. Over
September-November, the center officially vaccinated 5,500 people, of whom
3,500 are suspected of having paid for forged certificates.
GOVERNMENT – The new PNL-PSD-UDMR government led by Liberal
Nicolae Ciucă is today convening in a new session. High on the agenda is a
budget adjustment that needs urgent implementation in order to ensure the
timely payment of salaries and pensions next month. Additional sums of money
will be disbursed to the Finance, Healthcare and Labor ministries, while the
ministries of Agriculture and Transport will see their budgets slashed.
According to official data, the budget deficit will increase by nearly 1
billion Euro, although the target remains a little above 7% of GDP. On Thursday,
in its first session, the government adopted an emergency decree on the new
government structure, which includes two additional ministries compared to the
previous cabinet. Sorin Grindeanu from PSD and Kelemen Hunor from UDMR will deputize
for Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă as he sees fit. Under the emergency decree,
all available positions in public institutions will be open for vacancy
contests.
AWARD -
Romanian swimmer David Popovici was awarded the 2021 Piotr Nurowski Best Summer European Young Athlete Prize by the
European Olympic Committees during an event hosted by Samorin, Slovakia. Aged
17, Popovici won gold at the European Short Course Swimming Championships, and
another three medals in European Youth Championships. He broke two world junior
records in the 100m and 200m freestyle events, and ranked 4th at the
2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 100m freestyle event. Enrolled at Dinamo sports club
in Bucharest, Popovici claimed the prize ahead of four other atheltes, Sky
Brown from Great Britain (skateboarding), Adriana Cerezo Iglesias from Spain
(taekwondo), and Viktoria Listunova from Russia (artistic gymnastics) and Adriana
Vilagos from Serbia (athletics). The Piotr Nurowski award was created in memory
of Piotr Nurowski, former President of the Polish Olympic Committee who died
tragically in a plane crash in 2010. In 2012, Romanian gymnast Larisa Iordache
was voted second best young summer European athlete. (VP)
