COVID-19: Romania will end state of alert and start lifting pandemic restrictions

The Romanian authorities will not extend the state of alert due to the COVID-19 pandemic beyond March 8, 2022, president Klaus Iohannis announced on Friday, March 4.

In mid-March 2020, [the president instated the state of emergency in Romania](Romania’s president declares state of emergency to fight the coronavirus: We are in a situation that humanity has not faced in recent history) after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. In May 2020, [the state of emergency was replaced with the state of alert](COVID-19: Romania replaces state of emergency with state of alert), which has been prolonged until now. The state of alert has allowed the Government to enforce various restrictions to manage the pandemic.

“The COVID-19 epidemic is on an accelerated downward trend in our country, and the fifth wave is about to end. It is time, therefore, to make new decisions related to the management of this situation, decisions with a major impact for the future,” Iohannis said in a press statement on March 4.

“With the lifting of the alert, a series of measures that have been in force until now will be eliminated. The complete measures will be announced and explained in detail, in the next period, by the competent authorities.”

Iohannis added that, after the state of alert will end, the Ministry of Health will remain in charge of managing the evolution of the pandemic.

In the two years since the first case of COVID-19 infection was reported in Romania, about 64,000 people died because of this disease, representing about 2.3% of the total number of people infected with the virus, according to the latest official numbers.

The fifth wave of the pandemic, also known as the Omicron wave, started in January this year and peaked on February 1, when over 40,000 new cases of infection were reported in just one day. However, the number of daily deaths associated with the virus was about a two-thirds lower compared with the Delta wave in October 2021. On March 4, Romania reported 5,600 new COVID-19 cases and 67 deaths.

“Even if there are good signs that we have entered a downward phase, it is just as important that we continue to vaccinate and protect ourselves, because we will most likely have to live with this virus,” president Iohannis said.

Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates against COVID-19 in Europe, with just over 8 million people who got the vaccine, representing 41.5% of the adult population, according to official data.