October 23, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 23.10.2021, 20:00

COVID-19 New restrictions take effect on Monday in Romania, as the country is
struggling with an unprecedented epidemiological crisis. For 30 days, the
digital COVID certificate will be compulsory in most public places, except for
food shops and drugstores, face covering will be compulsory in all indoor and
outdoor public areas, and a ban on outdoor concerts and shows, as well as on
private events, including weddings, conferences and workshops, will be in place.
Also on Monday, public and private kindergartens,
primary, secondary schools and high schools will take a 2-week break.
After-schools will also be closed, although nurseries will stay open. Companies
with more than 50 employees will organise shifts or remote work, sports
competitions will be held without public in attendance, and a night curfew will also be introduced, between 10 pm and 5 am, for
the unvaccinated. On Saturday the authorities reported 15,261
new SARS-CoV-2 cases and 446 COVID-related deaths.

VACCINE An
efficiency survey on COVID-19 vaccination in Romania indicates that
immunisation has reduced contamination risks 5 times,
hospitalisation risks 10 times, intensive care admission risks nearly 14 times
and COVID-related death risks over 20 times. The data analysed included over 2.7 million
tests (both positive and negative), collected from over 1.7 million people aged
over 16 and vaccinated. The survey was run in February – May, when the Alpha
variant of the virus was prevailing in Romania. Following repeated appeals from
physicians, for fear of getting infected or simply because they no longer have
access to various activities without the digital COVID certificate, many
Romanians previously reluctant to the vaccine seem to have changed their minds.
According to the latest official figures, over 127,000 people got vaccinated in
the last 24 hours, most of them (over 91,000) with the first dose. This weekend
the capital Bucharest is hosting a vaccination marathon. Since the start of the
vaccination programme in late December, more than 6.3 million Romanians have
received COVID-19 vaccines, and nearly 5.9 million of them are fully vaccinated.

GOVERNMENT In Romania, prime
minister designate Nicolae Ciucă, a retired general, carried on negotiations
over parliamentary support for his new cabinet. The Democratic Union of Ethnic
Hungarians in Romania will be the Liberals’ partners in the ruling coalition. The
head of the Social Democratic Party in opposition, Marcel Ciolacu, Saturday had
a telephone conversation with the prime minister designate, requesting him to
come up with a clear, short-term action plan on handling the pandemic and to
include in his governing programme 10 urgent measures suggested by the Social
Democrats in the healthcare, economic and social areas. A new discussion will
be held next week. Unhappy with a possible cooperation with the Social
Democrats, many Liberals will leave the party and will start a new one jointly
with the former party leader Ludovic Orban, said an ex-government spokesman, Ionel Dancă. Romania has been faced with a governmental crisis since
September, when Save Romania Union left the ruling coalition over disagreements
with PM Florin Cîţu and backed a
no-confidence motion initiated by the Social Democrats against the Cîţu
government. The first politician designated by president Klaus Iohannis to form
a new government, Save Romania Union leader Dacian Cioloş, failed to get
endorsed by Parliament.

MOLDOVA The PM of the Republic of Moldova, Natalia Gavriliţă, announced the
rationalisation of natural gas and other resources during the one-month state
of emergency declared by Parliament on Friday. She said the government was
looking for alternative gas sources, due to the lack of a new contract with
Russia, which has cut supplies by one-third and raised prices to an unacceptable
level. Russian-Moldovan talks in Moscow ended after 2 days without an
agreement, and Moldova might see Russian gas supply completely suspended as of
November.

TENNIS Raluca Olaru (Romania) / Nadia Kicenok (Ukraine) Saturday
lost the final of the tennis tournament in Moscow (WTA 500), to 2nd
seeded Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) / Katerina Siniakova (the Czech Republic) 6-3,
4-6, 10-8. This was the 24th
WTA doubles final for Raluca Olaru, who has won 11 titles so far. Olaru and
Kicenok this year won the tournaments in Sankt Petersburg and Chicago, and lost
the final in Bad Homburg. (tr. A.M. Popescu)