Coronavirus: Romanian PM says the Govt. is not planning new restrictions

The Romanian government does not currently intend to take other restrictive measures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, but to enforce the law, prime minister Ludovic Orban said on Tuesday, October 27, during his visit to Paris.

"At present, we do not intend to take other restrictive measures, but we intend to apply the legislation, the government decision on the state of alert, the joint orders. Basically, to implement the measures set for each stage," Orban said, according to local news station Digi24.

Deputy prime minister Raluca Turcan had previously said at Digi24 that the government would probably evaluate, along the way, other possible measures if the number of new COVID-19 cases keeps increasing in the country. For now, the authorities are analyzing the effect of the measures already taken.

Alexandru Rafila, Romania's representative at the World Health Organization and a candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in the upcoming general elections, believes that the number of COVID-19 infections will continue to increase in the coming period in Romania. In his opinion, the measures taken so far by the Romanian authorities "are probably not enough" because some of them were adopted late.

Rafila said at public TV station TVR that the authorities' evaluations and the increase of the number of beds in hospitals are the right solutions, but they are not enough. "We need to review very quickly how the public health system works to allow cases and contacts to be quickly identified, tested, and isolated, which could stop the growth," he said, according to News.ro.

President Klaus Iohannis also made a press statement on Tuesday, after a working meeting with health specialists. He said that Romania is "facing a challenging period," and "sustained efforts are needed to control the epidemic."

"The fight against the virus takes place on two fronts - on the one hand, in the prevention area, through which we try to limit the transmission of the infection, and on the other hand in hospitals, where COVID-19 patients need specialized care and treatment," the president said.