Covid-19: Romania starts vaccinating teachers, authorities warn of third wave risk

The priority vaccination of teachers is set to start today, February 24. Teachers in primary schools, secondary schools, and high schools, as well as the staff working in nurseries and kindergartens will receive the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by March 10, the Education Ministry announced.

A total of 62 vaccination centers will open in the coming days all over the country, 42 of them for teachers in the pre-university system and 20 for those in universities.

Some 60,000 people are estimated to receive the vaccine by March 10, Valeriu Gheorghiţă, the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign, announced at a press conference on February 23.

“The vaccination period targeting teaching professionals lasts until March 10 to administer the first dose. We estimate that around 60,000 people will be vaccinated as part of this process. More than 42,000 people among the teaching staff already received the vaccine, and some 128,000 are already scheduled,” Gheorghiţă said.

The country could soon start using Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine, he announced. Romania would receive 8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which would be used in the mobile vaccination centers, set up to reach isolated localities or those without access to a vaccination center.

Gheorghiţă also explained that the authorities could not rule out a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic, given the more transmissible strain, and urged people to make appointments to get vaccinated.

“We have doses available from three different companies […] We can accelerate the vaccination campaign given that, according to available data, we cannot rule out a third wave which, considering the high transmissibility of the new strain, might have quite a high epidemiological impact,” he said, arguing “it is important to protect ourselves.”

A recent report of the National Public Health Institute (INSP) showed that the UK strain was already active in half of the country’s counties, and “there is a high probability it spreads throughout the entire territory of Romania in the near future.”