COVID-19 Roughly 120 thousand people have got the anti-Covid vaccine in Romania
\nin the past 24 hours, out of whom 82 thousand got the first jab. The number of
\nthose fully vaccinated has exceeded 6.2 million and the vaccine rollout has
\nbeen given such a boost of late making the authorities to predict that if the
\npace maintained until the end of the year Romania could have a rate of 70%
\nvaccinated. Over 12,100 new infections were reported on Saturday as well as 413
\nfatalities. Roughly 20 thousand people are currently being treated in
\nhospitals, out of whom 1858 in ICUs. A medical team from Germany has arrived in
\nRomania to asses Covid-infected patients who can be treated in hospitals in
\nthat country and an aircraft belonging to German air forces has been made available
\nfor the transport of these patients. In another development, Romania is to
\nreceive next week a batch of 10 thousand monoclonal antibodies as part of the
\ncontract the European Commission has signed with the producer, Romania’s Health
\nMinister Andrei Baciu has announced. The country’s National Committee for
\nEmergency Situations has also updated the list of countries and territories
\nwith a high-risk of infection with the Netherlands and Russia in the red tier.
\nIn the yellow zone there are Malaysia, Cuba, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic,
\nDenmark, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein or Jordan. Palestine has
\nbeen included in the green tier. <\/p>\n
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VACCINE The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the
\nemergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine for the prevention of
\nCOVID-19 to include children 5 through 11 years of age thus paving the way for
\na new major stage of the vaccine rollout targeting 28 million children in the
\ncountry. The authorization was based on the FDA’s thorough and transparent data
\nassessment that included input from independent advisory committee experts who
\noverwhelmingly voted in favor of making the vaccine available to children in
\nthis age bracket. At least 246 million Covid-19 infections have been reported
\nworldwide so far and 5 million people have died, according to worldmeters.info.
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DST
\nOn Saturday night Romanians will adjust their clocks setting them back by one
\nhour as part of the Daylight Saving Time practice. So, the day of October 31st
\nis going to be the year’s longest day with 25 hours and Romania is going to
\nhave a two-hour GMT advance. The DST started being implemented by the European
\ncountries in the past century in an attempt to save on electricity, mainly
\nduring the war and the oil crises in back in the 1970s. However, doctors
\nbelieve that the DST can affect the bodies of children and the elderly alike as
\nit takes up to two weeks for people to adjust to the change. This year might be
\nthe last in which the DST can be applied as the European Parliament in 2019
\nvoted in favour of scrapping the practice. Romania has not made a decision in
\nthis respect yet. <\/p>\n
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GOVERNMENT Romania’s Prime Minister designate, retired general
\nNicolae Ciuca, is to submit to Parliament today the ruling programme and the
\nlist of the cabinet ministers endorsed by the National Liberal party PNL. The
\nnew cabinet is to be sworn in next week. Ciuca says that although
\nmathematically speaking, the cabinet he proposes stands no chances to be
\napproved, talks are underway with MPs until the last moment. The interim Prime
\nMinister and PNL leader Florin Citu has given assurances the new cabinet will
\nget the necessary votes. His opinion is not shared by Kelemen Hunor, leader of
\nthe partner UDMR, who believes the minority Executive will not get support and
\nthat rebuilding the coalition with USR would have been the best alternative.
\nThe opposition Social Democrats and USR have announced they are not going to
\nvote for the new cabinet. The political situation in Romania went south after
\nUSR had left the coalition government headed by Florin Citu and voted for a
\nPSD-initiated censure motion against it jointly with the nationalist opposition
\nAUR. Former Chief of Staff and Defence Minister, General Ciuca is presently a
\nPNL senator and the second Prime Minister designated to forge a new government
\nafter the abortive attempt of USR leader Dacian Ciolos. Pundits believe, a
\nrejection of the Ciuca cabinet would pave the way for snap election although
\nthe Constitution allows president Iohannis to propose a third Prime Minister. <\/p>\n
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(bill)<\/p>\n
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