Message for the Romanians abroad
In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, Romanians in the Diaspora are urged not to return to the country for the Easter holidays.
Eugen Coroianu, 20.03.2020, 14:58
The Bucharest authorities need about ten days to make an estimate as to when the peak of the coronavirus pandemic will be in Romania. Health Minister Victor Costache has explained on Digi24 TV station, that one of the elements influencing the estimate is the number of Romanians who come from abroad, given that over 80% of the patients infected with Covid-19 are from this category. We remind you that the largest Romanian communities in Europe are in Italy and Spain, both countries highly affected by the pandemic.
Victor Costache has also presented the Health Ministrys treatment plans for the infected patients: “Our strategy is to hospitalize, in a fist stage, all the infected patients, to prevent the further spread of the virus. At present we have 2000 ICU beds and we will have more as we have purchased ventilators. This is not a very complex disease, but it requires a lot of logistics and medicines. Our strategy is to hospitalize patients infected with Covid-19 in the first two stages, that is more than 4000 people. We also plan to transfer or to keep at home patients with mild symptoms.”
Meanwhile, the Romanian health system continues to prepare to take in more patients, and 1000 ventilators are due to be delivered next week. New quarantine centers are being identified, such as hotels which are being closed during this period. The Health Minister pointed out that interns do not currently attend to coronavirus patients, but that they may have to if their number of the latter increases. In order to avoid this scenario, authorities will announce new restrictive measures in the coming days, the minister also said.
Against this background, President Klaus Iohannis has urged Romanians living abroad to give up on plans to return to the country for the Easter holidays as they will most likely be quarantined or go into self-isolation for 14 days: “Romanians living abroad are dear to us. We want to see them, we would like to be together, but this year, for these holidays, this is not possible. It is sad but we need to be honest in order to not create expectations that will not be fulfilled.”
The President asked prefects and other local authorities on Thursday to be active and follow the orders received from the centre. He made it clear that the situation is not only complicated, but also serious. It is up to us to overcome this, the President said in a conference call on the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the same occasion, PM Ludovic Orban said a normative act would be adopted at the next Government meeting, commissioning local authorities with the task of checking if the home isolation conditions are met. Also on Thursday, PM Orban announced harsher penalties for people who give false statements to the authorities or hide important information during epidemiological investigations, thus making it more difficult to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus. We cannot accept that irresponsible citizens who are in a situation of being isolated or quarantined may walk freely in society and risk infecting other citizens, the PM added. A new crime has been introduced: failure to provide data. If, in an epidemiological investigation, someone fails to provide complete information about the persons with whom he or she came in contact, this is considered to be an omission and a criminal case can be opened. (Translated by Elena Enache)
