A new contamination threshold – 40 thousand cases
Romania has registered a new psychological threshold regarding the daily number of SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Daniela Budu, 02.02.2022, 14:00
On Tuesday Romania exceeded 40,000 new cases of Covid-19 in 24 hours – the highest since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The figure is more than double the peak figure of the previous autumn wave. Also, the highest number of tests in one single day was made – over 122,000, and one in three results confirmed the infection. The coordinator of the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign, doctor Valeriu Gheorghiţă, considers that, at present, the testing capacity is not comparable to that of other countries.
On a private television station, he said that although the testing capacity for SARS-CoV-2 has increased in Romania, not enough tests are being made yet. According to him, in order to have the real number of infections, six times more tests should be made. On the other hand, about 10,000 people diagnosed with Covid-19 are hospitalized in health facilities across the country, double the number reported two weeks ago. There are about one thousand patients in ICUs. More than three-quarters of them are unvaccinated. And the number of hospitalized children is constantly increasing, hundreds being hospitalized and a few dozen being in ICUs.
The authorities warn that in order to limit the spread of coronavirus, health protection measures alone are not enough, and that testing from the first symptoms of the disease is very important. And since ambulances can hardly cope with the large number of cases, several centers have been opened where symptomatic people can go to be tested, including in the offices of some family doctors. Even if the number of contaminations is growing alarmingly, the number of people who get vaccinated for the first time is far too low, several thousand per day, compared to the authorities expectations.
As to the green certificate, it is still valid in Romania also for the people who have exceeded nine months from the second dose, even if, as of February 1, in the European Union its validity has been limited to this period without the booster dose. However, the head of the Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat, warns that Romania will soon have to adapt to the EU rules, and people who had the second vaccine dose more than nine months ago will have to get vaccinated with the third dose so as to keep the validity of the green certificate.
In the meantime, Romania has given up listing countries according to the Covid-19 incidence rate, and all people entering Romania will be quarantined for five days no matter where they come from, unless they provide a proof of vaccination, of having had the disease or a negative result of a PCR test. The National Committee for Emergency Situations has also established a 5-day quarantine period for people who get in contact with a Covid-19 patient, even if they are vaccinated, because of the most contagious variant of the coronavirus – Omicron. (LS)
