August 23, 2020 UPDATE

A news update

Newsroom, 23.08.2020, 19:26

August 23 — August 23 celebrated during Communism by huge military parades has become for many years now the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Stalinism and Nazism known as Black Ribbon Day in some countries. Firmly condemning fascism and communism is not a formality but a necessary gesture, says the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in a message conveyed on the occasion on Sunday. President Iohannis recalled that August 23 used to celebrate the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and now this day is an opportunity for younger generations to get to know the horrors, mass repression and suffering caused by the totalitarian regimes. According to the Romanian President real democracy can be consolidated in a society that knows and assumes its history. President Iohannis also recalls and pays homage to the courage of King Mihai I and the heroism of the Romanian army that, on August 23, 1944, managed to render the Romanian nation its dignity and put Romania on a track that led it to the victory of the Allies 76 years ago. The Romanian PM Ludovic Orban says that the testimonies about those sorrowful times are a real plea for condemning totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact signed on August 23, 1939 meant the division of Europe into two spheres of influences: Nazi and Stalinist and the start of WWII.

Covid-19 Ro — In Romania, the number of COVID-19 patients on Sunday went up 78,505 after 961 new cases have been reported, shows the Strategic Communication Group. Over the past 24 hours 39 people have died, taking the total death toll to 3,272. The number of patients in intensive care units in Romania on Saturday was 480. More than 35,300 patients have recovered. Most cases have been reported in Bucharest, Mures and Sibiu counties. As to the Romanian citizens abroad, 5,920 have been confirmed with the new coronavirus mostly in Germany, Italy and Spain and 124 have died. Over 30 employees from India working on a building site in Bucharest have been infected with SARS-CoV2. They have been isolated alongside the other 200 employees working on the same building site. The health minister Nelu Tataru said that despite the stabilizing trend of the Covid-19 pandemic evolution, health protection rules still need to be observed. He also added that if the number of new cases dropped from one day to the next for a period of 2 weeks, restaurants might be re-opened.

Covid-19 world — The new coronavirus pandemic seems to recrudesce in more and more countries which have lately reported higher numbers of contaminations since the spring wave of the pandemic or even the coronavirus outbreak. Over 23.1 million cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed around the world, according to worldometers.info, with almost 800 thousand deaths reported. A quarter of the total number of cases, that is more than 5.6 million, has been reported in the US where the death toll reached almost 175,000. The hardest hit country in Latin America is Brazil which reported on Sunday 50 thousand new cases and almost 900 deaths over the last 24 hours. The worst situation in Asia is reported in India with almost 2.9 million cases of contamination and 55 thousand deaths while in Africa, South Africa has gone beyond the threshold of 600 thousand infections. In Europe, there are fears of a second wave of the pandemic. In Spain, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and the Czech Republic the infection rate has grown significantly. Croatia announced the re-introduction, as of August 24, of several restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the pandemic.

Tennis — The pair made up of the Romanian Horia Tecau and the Dutch Jean-Julien Rojer will face the pair Raven Klaasen (South Africa)/Oliver Marach (Austria), 7th seeded in the eighth finals of the doubles competition of the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Cincinnati, which has total prizes up for grabs worth more than 4.2 million dollars. The tournament is hosted this year by Flushing Meadows Corona-Park in New York. Tecau and Rojer defeated the French pair Jeremy Chardy/Fabrice Martin 3-6, 6-3, 10-8. The pair Tecau and Rojer won a final in Cincinnati in 2016 when they defeated the pair Ivan Dodig (Croatia)/Marcelo Melo (Brazil). Tecau got a title in Cincinnati in 2012 alongside the Swedish player Robert Lindstedt.

Baccalaureate — In Romania, the 2nd session of this year’s Baccalaureate exam starts Monday with the written Romanian language and literature exam. 42,700 persons have signed up for the exam, almost 18 thousand of them being high school students who graduated in the previous years. Tuesday will see the compulsory exam corresponding to the high school profile, while Wednesday’s exam will be of the students’ option. The first results will be published by September 2 and the final ones on September 5. (tr. L. Simion)