October 17, 2021 UPDATE
A roundup of local and international news.
Newsroom, 17.10.2021, 18:00
Covid-19. Romania reported on Sunday over 11,500 new Covid infections in 41,000 people tested and 298 related fatalities, while 1,750 Covid patients are in intensive care. Romanias representative at the World Health Organisation Alexandru Rafila said the organisations experts requested a meeting with the National Public Health Institute to look into the causes of the epidemiological disaster in Romania, as well as to provide help with the vaccination campaign and assess the needs of the countrys hospitals.
Aid. International aid continues to arrive in Romania to help with the management of the health crisis after the Romanian state requested European support to combat the consequences of an exponential rise in new Covid cases. 15 ventilators and 8 oxygen concentrators used in the treatment of Covid patients arrived on Saturday from Denmark. A number of Romanian patients are receiving hospital treatment in Hungary and a group of doctors and nurses from the neighbouring Republic of Moldova will arrive on Monday at the mobile unit in Leţcani, near Iaşi, in north-eastern Romania. Under the EU civil protection mechanism, The Netherlands has already delivered 200 oxygen concentrators and Poland 50, and Italy has sent 5,200 vials of monoclonal antibodies which are part of the standard treatment of Covid patients.
List. An updated list of countries with high epidemiological risk came into force in Romania today. Ukraine and Gibraltar are now on the red list, following an increase in cases, while Albania and the Virgin Islands of the United States, which saw a drop in cases, were moved to the yellow list. The Netherlands, Gabon, Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands, where cases have risen, are now also on the yellow list. Switzerland, Canada, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Andorra and Greenland are on the green list. Travellers from yellow and red list countries who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are not required to isolate on entering Romania.
Politics. Prime minister designate Dacian Cioloş is planning to submit in Parliament the list of a minority Save Romania Union cabinet. The permanent bureaus will then establish the date of the investiture vote in Parliament, which has to take place within 15 days at most. Cioloş failed to rebuild the coalition with the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, who said they would not support him. Although Cioloş was willing to negotiate with the Liberals, Fridays meeting was cancelled after the Liberal leader, outgoing prime minister Florin Cîţu said Cioloş should form a government with the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance for the Union of Romanians, alongside which the Save Romania Union voted to bring down the government. The same message came from the leader of the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania, Kelemen Hunor, who said the prime minister designate did not manage to restore a minimum level of trust that would have allowed the recreation of the coalition.
EU. Acting Romanian foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu is attending on Monday a meeting of EU foreign ministers hosted by Luxembourg. Talks are expected to focus on the EUs relations with the Gulf states and the future of the Eastern Partnership, as well as the situation in Afghanistan and Tunisia, the western Balkans, climate diplomacy and the situation in Belarus and Mali. (CM)
