Romania purchases 40,000 rapid Covid-19 tests

Romania purchased 40,000 rapid antigen tests which will be distributed to emergency units in the country, state secretary Raed Arafat, the head of the Emergency Situations Department (DSU), explained in an interview with television station Antena 3, quoted by G4media.

The tests will be used for patients displaying symptoms, Arafat explained.

He also said the country plans to purchase another 3 million rapid antigen tests to "speed up the detection of people infected with Covid-19 and the quarantine and isolation processes". The country's testing capacity currently stands at 40,000 – 50,000 tests per day, but it doesn't reach the maximum, and less than 40,000 daily tests are carried out.

Arafat said prevention is the best solution and urged everyone to follow the rules.

"The only good solution is prevention. It is clear that every measure upsets someone; it's not possible otherwise. Other countries implemented tougher measures," he said.

"People who don't believe, who are trying to convince others to ignore the rules, only endanger other people's lives. We have managed to increase the number of beds, but we also need staff. We will try to deploy resident doctors to intensive care units; we need this support, the human resource."

According to him, the month of December doesn't mean a return to normal. "We will have to be very careful until the spring of next year. It doesn't mean we will have tough measures until then. If people let the guard down, a new wave starts."

He also said he expected the number of infections to increase until the effect of the restrictions is visible.

"The measures can take us to a plateau and then the drop starts. But if it is too early, we will start seeing an increase again. We will have special measures on election day, and we will be cautious with what happens afterward; no celebrations, no festivities."

(Photo: Ilzekalve | Dreamstime.com)