(Bucharest) Romanians will once again have to wear a surgical mask to go out on the streets, the government announced on Wednesday, as the number of daily COVID-19 infections has more than tripled since early 2022.
“This new variant (Omicron, Editor’s note) is extremely contagious, which is why the wearing of a mask becomes compulsory outside as it is already inside”, declared to journalists the Secretary of State for the ‘Interior, Raed Arafat, one month after the repeal of this constraint.
Hit by a particularly deadly wave of the pandemic in the fall, with a peak of 591 deaths recorded in 24 hours in early November, Romania, a country of 19 million inhabitants, had experienced a respite in December.
But the number of new cases started to rise again, standing at 4,893 in 24 hours on Wednesday, up from 1,451 on 1er January, against the backdrop of the Omicron spread.
Despite this outbreak, authorities are reluctant to follow expert recommendations for tougher restrictions.
If a health pass is compulsory to go to restaurants, the cinema or the museum in particular, a project aiming to extend its application to the workplace thus seems to have been abandoned after having first been watered down.
The leader of the Social Democrats (PSD, in power), Marcel Ciolacu, said in a television interview Tuesday evening that it was “too late” to adopt it, saying “refuse to put pressure on the Romanians to that they be vaccinated ”.
Faced with the laxity of the authorities, the latter are increasingly shunning the vaccination centers, only 31,000 doses having been administered on Tuesday.
To date, 41% of the population has received two doses, one of the lowest rates in the European Union (EU).