3 million Romanians vaccinated
Over 3 million people have received COVID-19 vaccines in Romania
Leyla Cheamil, 26.04.2021, 14:00
The number of Romanians having received COVID-19 vaccines has passed 3 million since the start of the rollout late in December. Of them, around 1.8 million have got the booster dose as well.
Contributing to this was also the vaccination marathon in Timișoara (west), where thousands of people got anti-SARS-CoV-2 jabs this past weekend. Over 600 physicians, nurses and volunteering students were involved.
The marathon will reach Bucharest on May 7-9, according to the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghiţă. The event will be similar to the one organised in Timişoara, and will be hosted by the Palace Hall and the National Library in the capital city. Any citizen, irrespective of where they live, will be able to get a vaccine dose without previous appointment, and all they will need is their ID.
“We intend to have around 50 vaccination teams, which means that over these 2 and a half days of work, over 15,000 people could get a dose. We are yet to decide on the type of vaccine, very likely we will have Pfizer ones, Valeriu Gheorghiţă explained.
The culture minister Bogdan Gheorghiu welcomed the success of his ministrys proposal to have a vaccination centre set up in the National Library car park. “Public Health and Culture are pooling resources for the greater good of Romanians! If we want to go to the movies, to the theatre or to concerts, then we must get vaccinated, Gheorghiu says in a Facebook post.
To step up the vaccine rollout, this past weekend the first drive-through vaccination centre was opened in Deva, in the south-west of the country. All people coming by car regardless of their home address can be immunised there without prior appointment on the online national platform. The drive-through centre comprises 4 units, with a combined targeted flow of 500 people a day.
President Klaus Iohannis has recently warned that the pandemic is not over, and urged people to get the vaccine. He reiterated that vaccination is the way out of this pandemic, and voiced his satisfaction with the national rate of around 100,000 jabs a day. Klaus Iohannis added that as the number of new infections goes down, the authorities will consider ending the state of alert. Extended every month, the state of alert was first introduced in Romania in mid-May last year, after a 2-month state of emergency to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. (tr. A.M. Popescu)
