Parliament discusses green pass
The draft law that makes the green pass certificate compulsory at work is still being debated by the Chamber of Deputies.
Ştefan Stoica, 17.11.2021, 14:00
About 7 million Romanians have so far been fully immunised against Covid-19, a rather small figure as compared to the EU average and far from the target of 10 million people vaccinated by September 1. This target had been set by the authorities, who now seem to have forgotten about it. The slow pace of vaccination and the early relaxation of restrictive measures during summer made Romania vulnerable to the fourth wave of the pandemic, with thousand of infections and hundreds of related deaths being reported every day. When the situation risked being out of control, authorities have reintroduced restrictions targeting mostly unvaccinated people.
The fear of getting the virus and being denied access to malls and restaurants in the absence of a green pass, prompted many sceptics to get immunized. This has given a boost to mass vaccination, just like the introduction, in Parliament, of a law regulating the use of the green pass at work, after the model of countries like Italy, France or Greece, which made it compulsory for certain categories of employees or even for all workers in public and private sectors. In Romania, the draft law was rejected by the Senate, and the effects of this decision resulted in a drop in the number of people immunized. Against this background, politicians committed themselves to passing the law in the Chamber of Deputies, as sole decision making body in this case, in a version free of any possible discriminations like the ones invoked by the Social Democratic and ultra-nationalist opposition when they had voted against it in the Senate.
Things seem to be stalling in the Chamber of Deputies as well, with amendments that cover 40 pages having to be discussed. The head of the Health Commission, former Liberal health Minister Nelu Tataru, has admitted that delaying the introduction of the green pass at work has negative effects on the vaccination rate. The Social Democrats propose a two-month window to be granted to workers to get vaccinated and their free testing during this period, while the Liberals are willing to offer only 30 days for that. Also, the Liberals deem unacceptable the proposal of the parliamentary party AUR, regarding the introduction of testing for antibodies, invoking its lack of scientific irrelevance. They also proposed for people who refuse vaccination and get infected to pay for medical services if hospitalised. The Social Democrat Alexandru Rafila, the country s representative with the WHO, said that such measure would only deepen problems related to the late presentation at medical units of the people infected, who must be encourage to do that early, at the first symptoms. In their turn, USR asked for debates to be accelerated and stipulations for MPs and persons in public offices to be extended.
Standing better than Romania is terms of vaccination rate, Austria has imposed quarantine for unvaccinated persons. In spite of being faced with what experts define as the 5th wave of the pandemic, countries like France, the Netherlands and Britain, where the vaccination rate exceeds 80% have a small number of casualties. (EE)
