August 27, 2020 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 27.08.2020, 20:06

COVID-19 1,504 new cases of Covid infections have
been registered in Romania since the previous reports, the Group of Strategic
Communication announced on Thursday. This has been the largest number of
infections reported in a single day. 38 new fatalities have also been reported
raising the death toll to 3,459. 83,150 infections have been confirmed in
Romania since the beginning of the pandemic. 36,677 patients have been cured
and left hospitals. 11,351 have been confined at home, and 5,654 are currently in
isolation. 30,770 have been quarantined at home and 492 patients are in
intensive care units. According to Romania’s Health Minister Nelu Tataru, the
number of infections is likely to decrease; however, this decrease isn’t going
to be fast but gradual. 6,585 of the Romanian citizens abroad have been
confirmed infected and 126 of them died.

INDEPENDENCE The neighboring Republic of Moldova on Thursday marked
29 years since the proclamation of its independence. On August 27, 1991 after
the failed coup d’etat in Moscow, the Parliament in Chisinau, picketed by
hundreds of thousands of people, voted for breaking away from the Soviet Union.
The Republic of Moldova is set up on part of the Romanian eastern territories
annexed by Moscow in 1940, following an ultimatum. Romania was the first
country in the world to recognize the independence of the neighboring
republic on the same day.

MOTION The permanent bureaus of the Romanian Parliament’s
two chambers decided on Thursday that the no confidence motion tabled by the
opposition Social Democratic Party PSD against the Liberal government should be
debated and voted on the last day of the extraordinary session, on August 31.
The Social Democrats criticize the Liberal government for the way in which it
managed the crisis caused by the pandemic. In turn, the government has notified
the Constitutional Court over the tabling of a no confidence motion during the
parliamentary break. The Romanian President Klaus Iohannis has accused PSD of
trying to create political instability out of electoral reasons.

DECISION According to Romania’s Prime Minister
Ludovic Orban, the government is going to amend the decision through which it
imposed the state of alert allowing the reopening of restaurants, under certain
prevention rules. He reminded that the HoReCa sector benefited from support during
the pandemic with a series of taxes and duties either cancelled or reduced. The
sector has also benefited from postponed installments and technical
unemployment measures. Representatives of this industry in Romania on Wednesday
pledged to observe the European regulations imposed by the present
epidemiological situation.

(translated by bill)