April 26, 2020 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 26.04.2020, 19:15

COVID-19 Another 11 people have died of Covid-19 in Romania, raising the death toll to 619, according to data made public on Sunday by the Strategic Communication Group. The total number of infections in Romania has exceeded 11 thousand. More than three thousand patients have been cured and discharged from hospital. Abroad, 1512 Romanian citizens have been confirmed as being infected, mostly in Italy, and 74 have died.

PANDEMIC Almost 3 million people across the world have been infected with the new coronavirus and more than 200 thousand have died of Covid-19. Europe reports the largest number of deaths, in particular in Italy, Spain, France and Great Britain. Some 53 thousand people have died in the US. The situation, however, seems to be getting more stable in many parts of Europe, and governments are now considering a gradual relaxation of restrictions. Some have already announced concrete measures to that end. The Chinese authorities have announced that in Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak, all patients have been discharged. The World Health Organization has drawn attention to the fact that the people who got cured are not automatically protected from getting reinfected. So far, no study has managed to show that the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies can provide immunity against successive infections in humans. The clarification was made as some states had suggested that finding the antibodies might be the starting point for a so-called immunity passport, which would allow people to travel and work, starting from the assumption that they are protected from a new infection.

TAROM The Romanian state-owned airline TAROM, has announced it resumes flights on May 2nd. The first destination will be Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, and other flights to Athens, Paris and Frankfurt will be operated in the following days. The Romanian low-cost company Blue Air has too announced that it will resume flights. At Thursdays meeting, the Romanian Government approved a salvage loan for the two Romanian companies. They had previously requested 130 million Euro to get over the crisis triggered by the pandemic. Next month, the European Commission will present a set of rules, including with regard to social distancing in airports and on board the planes, in order to ensure the safety of passengers once restrictions are lifted, the Romanian EU Commissioner for Transport Adina Valean has announced.

CHERNOBYL April 26th is the International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day, established by the UN in 2016 to draw attention to the long-term consequences of the nuclear disaster. 34 years have passed since the accident at Chernobyl, dubbed the most serious in history. Following an explosion at reactor no.4 of the nuclear power plant, a radioactive cloud was formed, which was carried across Europe and affected millions of people. The Soviet authorities hid the scale of the disaster and not even today the total number of the victims is known for sure. The cloud reached Romania too, and the highest levels of contamination were recorded in Iasi, Suceava, Targu Mures, Galati and Tulcea. Only four days after the disaster, the then Communist president Nicolae Ceausescu summoned the Executive Committee of the Communist Party, and the population was informed on May 2nd.

FINANCE The Romanian Finance Minister Florin Catu has stated that he will take all possible measures to make sure Romania resumes its stable prospects rating at the next evaluations made by rating agencies. He has said that all rating agencies have made a clear distinction between the way in which public finances were managed by the former Social Democratic power and the measures implemented by the current Liberal Government, as of last autumn. Citus predecessor, the Social Democrat Eugen Teodorovici has stated that from now on Romania will be perceived by investors as posing much more risks and Bucharest will get loans at higher prices. All these discussions have been triggered by the fact that on Friday, Moodys rating agency downgraded Romanias economic prospects from stable to negative. According to Moodys, Romanias budget deficit will reach 7.7% of the GDP in 2020.

CAPITAL Companies that operate on the Romanian financial market received from foreign shareholders capital injections worth 32.55 million Euros in the first quarter of this year, 2.6 more than in the same period last year, the National Trade Registry has announced. The largest capital injection was made in January by Metropolitan Life, a company that manages a private pension fund, followed by Omniasig Vienna Insurance Group in February. The data published monthly by the Trade Registry include the first 40 companies that get capital injections, classified in keeping with the value of the contribution.

TOURISM The tourist sector in Romania has been seriously affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to representatives of the employers association, 90% of the hotels in Romania are closed, and 150,000 out of the 180,000 employees in the hospitality sector have been furloughed or dismissed. The only hotels that are still open are those that work with the state and provide accommodation for the people in quarantine.

STURDZA Prince Mihai Dimitrie Sturdza, a historian and diplomat, has died in Paris, aged 86. He was the great-grandson of Mihail Sturdza, the ruler of Moldavia between 1834 – 1849. In 1952, Mihai Dimitre Sturdza was arrested by the Communist regime, accused of non-disclosing a plot, and was sent to labour camps. He was released in 1954 and managed to enroll with the Philology Faculty of Bucharest university, which he graduated in 1960. He left the country in 1963 and settled in Paris. He studied political sciences and worked for the Cultural and Scientific Exchange Department of the French Foreign Ministry until 1995. He worked as an interpreter for Charles de Gaulle and Valery Giscard dEstaing. Between 1986 and 1995 he was a political editor with the Romanian Department of the Free Europe radio station in Munich. At the end of this activity he received a letter of congratulations from the president of the US, Bill Clinton. Mihai Dimitre Sturdza was also a prominent historian and his works cover all genres, from heraldry, genealogy and the Romanian – Russian relations, to history of culture. His studies and volumes have been published by prestigious publishers in Paris, Munich, Bucharest and Iasi. (M.Ignatescu)