July 18, 2020 UPDATE

july 18, 2020 update A roundup of domestic and international news

Covid-19. In Romania, the number of infections with the new coronavirus has exceeded 36,600, according to the latest data made public by the Strategic Communication Group. 889 new cases in 24 hours were reported on Saturday. Also, 21 more people died, raising the pandemic death toll to 2009. Out of those who tested positive, more than 22,400 have been declared cured and discharged. Abroad, 5,212 Romanians were confirmed to be infected with the new coronavirus, and 122 died. Doctors say that one of the causes of the explosion in the number of cases is the discharge of positive patients on demand. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban stated on Saturday that he did not wish to impose measures that would impact the economy in a negative way, but that depended on how the rules were observed. In turn, the health minister Nelu Tataru said that authorities were not considering delaying the start of the school year or the local elections due in September. He also rejected the idea of a new state of emergency due to the rise in the number of Covid-19 cases.


Pandemic. More than 14,200,000 people have been infected with the new coronavirus in the world since the beginning of the pandemic and almost 600,000 have died. According to worldometers.info, more than 8.4 million people have healed so far. The United States reported, for the third day in a row, a record number of new cases of COVID-19 in 24 hours, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The more than 77,600 new contaminations reviewed in one day bring the number of cases of infection in the country, since the beginning of the pandemic, to about 3.64 million. For several weeks now, the United States has been facing a surge spike in the number of infections in the south and west of the country. Despite that, president Donald Trump has promised to not force the Americans wear masks, saying that people must enjoy a certain freedom. His statements contradicts the recommendations made by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US's chief epidemiologist, who called on central and local government to be firm and have people wear masks.  In the face of rising contamination and the threat of a second wave, several European countries continue to tighten sanitation and quarantine conditions. In France, where several outbreaks have reappeared in recent days, wearing a mask will become mandatory next week in all enclosed spaces reserved for the public. In Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison postponed the opening of parliament by a few weeks, given that the new coronavirus continues to spread in the most densely populated cities in the country.


Quarantine law. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis on Saturday promulgated the Law on the establishment of measures in the field of public health in situations of epidemiological and biological risk. On Thursday, the Bucharest Senate, the decision-making body on this matter, adopted the law on quarantine and isolation. In six days of debates, numerous changes were made to the bill initiated by the Government. Earlier, in the Chamber of Deputies, the document, harshly criticized by specialists, the opposition and NGOs, had been changed. In the form in which it was definitively voted, the law stipulates, among other things, that the quarantine measure is established on the basis of official scientific statements and case definition, at the person's home, at a location declared by them or in a space designated by the authorities.


Laser. Professor Gerard Mourou, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2018 and the initiator of the ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) project, came to Romania, where he visited, the ELI Center in Măgurele (near Bucharest). Professor Mourou particularly appreciated the remarkable progress in the implementation of the project, emphasizing the uniqueness, technological and scientific advancement of the infrastructure made at the international research platform in the field of lasers. He discussed with researchers there the launch of "experiments related to the use of high-power laser systems in the development of new nuclear technologies for energy production with minimal environmental pollution." We recall that, in March 2019, the laser in Magurele registered a first in world research: it reached 10 PW, the power for which it was built, being the most powerful laser in the world. (M. Ignatescu)



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Publicat: 2020-07-18 19:20:00
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