October 30, 2021

Click here for a roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 30.10.2021, 17:31

COVID-19 Roughly 120 thousand people have got the anti-Covid vaccine in Romania
in the past 24 hours, out of whom 82 thousand got the first jab. The number of
those fully vaccinated has exceeded 6.2 million and the vaccine rollout has
been given such a boost of late making the authorities to predict that if the
pace maintained until the end of the year Romania could have a rate of 70%
vaccinated. Over 12,100 new infections were reported on Saturday as well as 413
fatalities. Roughly 20 thousand people are currently being treated in
hospitals, out of whom 1858 in ICUs. A medical team from Germany has arrived in
Romania to asses Covid-infected patients who can be treated in hospitals in
that country and an aircraft belonging to German air forces has been made available
for the transport of these patients. In another development, Romania is to
receive next week a batch of 10 thousand monoclonal antibodies as part of the
contract the European Commission has signed with the producer, Romania’s Health
Minister Andrei Baciu has announced. The country’s National Committee for
Emergency Situations has also updated the list of countries and territories
with a high-risk of infection with the Netherlands and Russia in the red tier.
In the yellow zone there are Malaysia, Cuba, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Jordan. Palestine has
been included in the green tier.

VACCINE The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the
emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for the prevention of
COVID-19 to include children 5 through 11 years of age thus paving the way for
a new major stage of the vaccine rollout targeting 28 million children in the
country. The authorization was based on the FDA’s thorough and transparent data
assessment that included input from independent advisory committee experts who
overwhelmingly voted in favor of making the vaccine available to children in
this age bracket. At least 246 million Covid-19 infections have been reported
worldwide so far and 5 million people have died, according to worldmeters.info.

DST
On Saturday night Romanians will adjust their clocks setting them back by one
hour as part of the Daylight Saving Time practice. So, the day of October 31st
is going to be the year’s longest day with 25 hours and Romania is going to
have a two-hour GMT advance. The DST started being implemented by the European
countries in the past century in an attempt to save on electricity, mainly
during the war and the oil crises in back in the 1970s. However, doctors
believe that the DST can affect the bodies of children and the elderly alike as
it takes up to two weeks for people to adjust to the change. This year might be
the last in which the DST can be applied as the European Parliament in 2019
voted in favour of scrapping the practice. Romania has not made a decision in
this respect yet.

GOVERNMENT Romania’s Prime Minister designate, retired general
Nicolae Ciuca, is to submit to Parliament today the ruling programme and the
list of the cabinet ministers endorsed by the National Liberal party PNL. The
new cabinet is to be sworn in next week. Ciuca says that although
mathematically speaking, the cabinet he proposes stands no chances to be
approved, talks are underway with MPs until the last moment. The interim Prime
Minister and PNL leader Florin Citu has given assurances the new cabinet will
get the necessary votes. His opinion is not shared by Kelemen Hunor, leader of
the partner UDMR, who believes the minority Executive will not get support and
that rebuilding the coalition with USR would have been the best alternative.
The opposition Social Democrats and USR have announced they are not going to
vote for the new cabinet. The political situation in Romania went south after
USR had left the coalition government headed by Florin Citu and voted for a
PSD-initiated censure motion against it jointly with the nationalist opposition
AUR. Former Chief of Staff and Defence Minister, General Ciuca is presently a
PNL senator and the second Prime Minister designated to forge a new government
after the abortive attempt of USR leader Dacian Ciolos. Pundits believe, a
rejection of the Ciuca cabinet would pave the way for snap election although
the Constitution allows president Iohannis to propose a third Prime Minister.

(bill)