Coronavirus in Romania: Health expert says real number of cases unknown as many didn’t have symptoms

The real number of coronavirus cases in Romania is not known as many people experienced the illness without showing symptoms or had atypical symptoms that did not require a visit to the doctor, physician Alexandru Rafila, the head of the Romanian Microbiology Society, told local TV station Digi24.

“It is true that we don’t know the real number of cases because there are many people who experienced the illness without showing symptoms, who did not know they had the disease or had unspecific symptoms, and they did not turn to the doctor. There are 200,000 confirmed cases in France, and the seroprevalence study showed me 6% of the French, meaning 3.6 million people. […] The same happens in the case of the flu. It doesn’t happen only with this disease. The number of diagnosed flu cases is much, much lower than the real number of cases. It is a reality, we cannot change it,” Rafila said, quoted by News.ro.

Romania had 11,978 confirmed Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, April 29, at noon.

Rafila estimated that there were ten times more cases locally. Even with 120,000 cases, the percentage relative to the population of Romania was still low, he argued.

“We have 12,000 diagnosed cases and, probably, there were ten times more, but relative to Romania’s population, 120,000 is a very low percentage. This is why I think we had a reduced circulation of the virus in Romania; it circulated in places like Suceava. One cannot compare Suceava not even to Bucharest because there were 3,000 cases in Suceava county, most of them in the city of Suceava, which has 120,000 residents. At one point, we had 1,000 cases in Bucharest, which has 2 million residents,” he explained.

After the lifting of the lockdown restrictions, expected on May 15, the measures that will be taken should take into account the situation in every community, he explained. The steps taken in Suceava, where there are 3,000 cases, will not be the same as the ones in Harghita county, where there are 20 cases, he said, quoted by News.ro.

Fewer cases are expected over the summer, he explained, but the authorities will focus on any potential local coronavirus hotspots.

He also said Romania’s testing capacity was not low at the moment, but it needed to be increased.