Romania’s president to extend state of emergency due to COVID-19 by another month: This is not the time to relax

Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis announced on Monday, April 6, that he will issue another decree next week to extend the state of emergency in the country by another month. The president decreed the state of emergency on March 16 to allow the authorities to enforce stricter measures against the new coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

“We have concluded that it will be necessary to extend the state of emergency,” Klaus Iohannis said after a meeting with prime minister Ludovic Orban and his cabinet members on Monday. “I asked the Government to come up with proposals to be included in this decree, this week we will elaborate the text of the decree and, at the beginning of next week, I will issue a new decree, which will extend the state of emergency by another month. This period is absolutely necessary to keep things, to keep the evolution of the epidemic under control,” the president added.

Iohannis also said that the measures implemented by the Government through military ordinances, since he decreed the state of emergency, have had positive effects. The authorities have limited people’s movement asking the population to stay at home with only a few exceptions, such as going to work and shopping. Schools have been closed and all public events banned.

“A first conclusion would be that, compared to other countries, the increase in the number of people affected by the epidemic has not been as fast as I observed, for example, in countries where we have many Romanians, such as Italy and Spain. This obviously comes from the fact that we have taken very strong steps from an early stage. But I must warn you very clearly: It is not the time to relax and in no case is it time to stop following the instructions of the authorities. All experts, all doctors tell us that the evolution of the epidemic continues to depend on how we respect the instructions of the authorities. If we follow the instructions - we avoid contact and so on - we may not have a very large growth. If we do not respect them, we may reach the scenarios as we have seen, unfortunately, in the countries I have just mentioned,” Klaus Iohannis warned.

On the bright side, the president said that Romania will receive, starting this week, 2.5 million masks for the medical personnel, 5 million masks for the gendarmes and policemen in charge of maintaining public order, and about 8 million masks that will reach the population. At the same time, some 500,000 protection suits for doctors will arrive in the country.

Meanwhile, Romania will send to Italy 11 doctors and six nurses to help treat the COVID-19 patients in the Milan area.

(Photo source: presidency.ro)