October 23, 2021

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Newsroom, 23.10.2021, 13:55

COVID-19 New restrictions take effect on Monday in Romania, as the country is
struggling with an unprecedented epidemiological crisis. For 30 days, the
digital COVID certificate will be compulsory in most public places, except for
food shops and drugstores, face covering will be compulsory in all indoor and
outdoor public areas, and a ban on outdoor concerts and shows, as well as on
private events, including weddings, conferences and workshops, will be in place.
Also on Monday, public and private kindergartens,
primary, secondary schools and high schools will take a 2-week break.
After-schools will also be closed, although nurseries will stay open. Companies
with more than 50 employees will organise shifts or remote work, sports
competitions will be held without public in attendance, and a night curfew will also be introduced, between 10 pm and 5 am, for
the unvaccinated. On Saturday the authorities reported 15,261
new SARS-CoV-2 cases and 446 COVID-related deaths.

VACCINE Following repeated appeals from physicians, for fear of getting
infected or simply because they no longer have access to various activities
without the digital COVID certificate, many Romanians previously reluctant to
the vaccine seem to have changed their minds. According to the latest official
figures, over 128,000 people got the vaccine in the last 24 hours, most of them
(over 86,000) with the first vaccine dose. This weekend the capital Bucharest
is hosting a vaccination marathon. The National Defence Minister will also
organize on Monday and Tuesday, a vaccination marathon in 6 military hospitals
in the country. President Klaus Iohannis Saturday once again called on people
to get the vaccine, saying this is the only way to curb the Covid-19 pandemic. Since
the start of the vaccination programme in late December, more than 6.2 million
Romanians have received COVID-19 vaccines, and more than 5.8 million of them
are fully vaccinated.

GOVERNMENT In Romania, prime
minister designate Nicolae Ciucă, a retired general, carries on negotiations
over parliamentary support for his new cabinet. The Liberal leader Florin Cîţu
also took part in Friday’s talks with the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians
in Romania, the Liberals’ partners in the ruling coalition. Cîţu said that
early next week the governing programme and distribution of cabinet seats would
be submitted to Parliament. He added that in order to secure parliamentary support,
the Liberals would discuss with Save Romania Union as well, although the latter
originally announced they would not back a minority government. On the other
hand, the Social Democrats, the main party in opposition, were not contacted
for talks. Unhappy with a possible cooperation with the Social Democrats, many
Liberals will leave the party and will start a new one jointly with the former
party leader Ludovic Orban, said an ex-government spokesman, Ionel Dancă. Orban’s supporters have already called on president
Klaus Iohannis and on Florin Cîţu not to accept the support of the Social
Democratic Party. Romania has been faced with a governmental crisis since
September, when Save Romania Union left the ruling coalition over disagreements
with PM Florin Cîţu. Cîţu’s
cabinet was dismissed following a no-confidence motion initiated by the Social
Democrats and backed by Save Romania Union. The first politician designated by
president Klaus Iohannis to form a new government, Save Romania Union leader
Dacian Cioloş, failed to get endorsed by Parliament.

MOLDOVA The PM of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavriliţă, announced the
rationalisation of natural gas and other resources during the one-month state
of emergency declared by Parliament on Friday. She said the government was
looking for alternative gas sources, due to the lack of a new contract with
Russia, which has cut supplies by one-third and raised prices to an unacceptable
level. Russian-Moldovan talks in Moscow ended after 2 days without an
agreement, and Moldova might see Russian gas supply completely suspended as of
November.

TENNIS Raluca Olaru (Romania) / Nadia Kicenok (Ukraine) are
today playing the final of the tennis tournament in Moscow (WTA 500), against 2nd
seeded Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) / Katerina Siniakova (the Czech Republic). On
Friday, Raluca Olaru and Nadia Kicenok defeated the Russians Natela Dzalamidze /
Kamila Rahimova 7-5, 7-5. This is the 24th WTA doubles final for
Raluca Olaru, who has won 11 titles so far. Olaru and Kicenok this year won the
tournaments in Sankt Petersburg and Chicago, and lost the final in Bad Homburg. (tr. A.M. Popescu)