26 July, 2020

Romania nears 45,000 coronavirus cases./ Yellow code alert for unstable weather in the west of the country.

Newsroom, 26.07.2020, 14:00

Coronavirus
Romania. The number of coronavirus cases in Romania hits 44,798, with
more than 1,000 new cases for the fifth day in a row. More than 25,600 people
have recovered and over 6,600 are in hospital, including 351 in intensive care.
22 new deaths were reported on Sunday, taking the death toll to 2,187. In another move, Romanians will no longer be able to
travel to Cyprus for tourism, and if they travel for different purposes, they will
be ordered to isolate for 14 days. It is now also obligatory to produce a
negative Covid-19 test for travellers arriving in Greece from Romania by plane,
not just for those arriving by road. The test must have been conducted no more
than 72 hours prior. Travellers who have not had time to do the test before the
new measure was introduced will be tested at the airport in Greece on Tuesday
and Wednesday. New entry conditions are also in place for travellers arriving
in Austria from Romania. A negative Covid-19 test must now be produced that was
conducted 72 hours prior instead of 4 days prior, and the isolation period has
been reduced from 14 to 10 days. These measures will remain in place at least
until the end of September. Italy has also changed the rules for travellers
from Romania and Bulgaria, who are now ordered to isolate for 14 days on arriving
in Italy.

Travel. Around 96,000 persons, both Romanian and
foreign nationals, crossed the Romanian borders on Saturday, by 32,100
different means of transport, including 10,000 road freight vehicles, says the
Romanian Border Police. Some 54,500 entered the country and 42,400 left the
country. The Hungarian border with 11 crossing areas was the busiest. No
waiting time was reported.

Coronavirus world. New records are being reached
around the world in terms of the number of infections with the novel
coronavirus. Statistical figures show that more than a third of all cases were
reported since 1st of July, in less than a month. The United States
is the worst hit in terms of the death toll, with more than 1,000 deaths for
four consecutive days. Mexico is also seeing a spike in cases while the death
toll passes 43,000. South Korea, a country held as an example for it kept the
pandemic in check, has announced more than 100 new infections. Even in North
Korea, the communist regime reported the first case, in a man who the regime
says fled to South Korea three years and returned to North Korea crossing the
border illegally. European nations are also faced with a massive rise in the
number of new infections, being caught between containing the new outbreaks and
restarting their economies. A spike in cases in Spain has led to new measures
amid fears of a second wave. Catalonia closed its nightclubs for two weeks.
Other cities in Spain are also seeing a rise in cases, prompting the UK to
remove Spain from the list of safe countries. France, where cases are also
soaring, has issued a travel alert and Norway has imposed quarantine on
travellers from Spain. Germany has also reached a record number of infections
in the last two m

Exhibition. Four works by the Romanian photographer
Felicia Simion are on display as part of the Visage(s) d’Europe exhibition held
by the Paris branch of the Network of European Union National Institutes for
Culture, EUNIC. The exhibition, which is in its second year, brings together
artists from 13 countries. Simion’s photographs are from a collection entitled
Ethnography, which captures rural practices and customs
in contemporary Romania amid the depopulation of villages and migration.

Weather. The weather service in Romania has
issued a yellow code alert for unstable weather for the western part of the
country in place until this evening. Torrential rain, thunderstorms, wind and
hail storms are expected, with precipitation expected to pass 25 litres per
square metre and even reaching 50 in some areas. Elsewhere around the country, the weather
remains hot and in the east and south-east the humidity and heat ratio is
forecast to go beyond the critical threshold of 80. Temperatures are expected
to hit 34 degrees today, with 28 in Bucharest at noon.