June 23, 2020 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
Newsroom, 23.06.2020, 20:10
PANDEMIC – The number of COVID-19 infections worldwide is nearing 9.2 million, with 475 thousand people having died. The new coronavirus is spreading at a faster pace, so, in the past 8 days one million new confirmed cases have been reported. The WHO officials say that when the pandemic broke out it took 3 months to report one million cases of contamination, and have warned that political disputes from various states and the lack of solidarity affect the global fight against the pandemic. The US continues to be the most affected country with almost 2.4 million confirmed cases. Nevertheless, the hotbed of the pandemic remains Latin America, where Brazil has reported 1.1 million cases of infection. South Korea has announced that a second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has broken out in the Seoul area. In Germany, authorities reintroduced restrictions in two districts, Guetersloh and Warendorf, in place until June 30, after 15 hundred people working at a slaughter house tested positive to the virus. Hundreds of them are Romanian.
MOTION – The Chamber of Deputies debated on Tuesday a simple motion initiated by the Social Democrats against the Liberal health minister Nelu Tataru. The Social Democrats say he failed to properly manage the health crisis and that the health ministry is preventing people with chronic diseases from getting specialized treatment. In reply, minister Tataru deplored what he considers the politicization of the health crisis and said that the opposition should get involved in solving the situation in a constructive manner. The vote on the motion is scheduled for Wednesday.
WEATHER – The weather in Romania remains unsettled, with warning of torrential rains and storms. A great part of Romania is under a code orange alert for unsettled weather and torrential rainfalls. The amount of water is going to exceed 40l/sq.m. Also thunderstorms, gales and hailstorms will be present mainly in the east and southeast. The heavy rainfall and the flooding in the past days have affected many regions across Romania. Two people have drowned.
EDUCATION – Romania’s Senate on Tuesday passed a law according to which the Education Ministry must provide every student or teacher, upon demand, with a laptop or tablet with Internet connection. 103 senators voted in favor of the law and 26 abstained from voting. The Social Democrats say that the law initiated by them marks a new stage in Romanian public education, as from now on all governments will have to support underprivileged children and equip them and their teachers, with what they need. Also on Tuesday, the Senate unanimously passed the law on the digitization of public administration, initiated by the Save Romania Union. A final decision with respect to the latter will be taken by the Chamber of Deputies.
INFECTION – World number one Novak Djokovic said Tuesday he had tested positive for coronavirus, the Serb star becoming the fourth player to contract the virus after taking part in his exhibition tennis tournament in the Balkans, France Press reports. Djokovic has no symptoms and joins Grigor Dimitrov, Borna Coric and Viktor Troicki in testing positive for COVID-19. Bulgarias Dimitrov, the world number 19, announced on Sunday he had tested positive after pulling out of the event, the biggest since the tennis season was halted because of the pandemic. The final in the Croatian coastal town of Zadar was cancelled Sunday while the final stop in Bosnia, due in early July, has also been cancelled after the news of Djokovics infection.
CORONAVIRUS – In Romania, people infected with the new coronavirus with little or no symptoms at all will be hospitalized for only 10 days, after which they will stay in home isolation for 14 days under the supervision of the family doctor. This is what the health minister Nelu Tataru announced on a private TV station, following reports of intense community spread of the virus. The latest report issued by the Strategic Communication Group shows new cases of infection, which takes the total number of people who tested positive to 24,505. Of the people having tested positive for COVID-19, more than 17,100 have recovered and 1,539 have died.
MEETING – Romanian President Klaus Iohannis met on Tuesday in Bucharest with PM Ludovic Orban, Finance Minister Florin Citu, the Minister of European Funds, Marcel Bolos, Transport Minister Lucian Bode, Economy Minister Virgil Popescu and the head of PM’s Chancellery, Ionel Danca, to discuss economic issues. The meeting took place after, on Monday, the Liberal leadership talked about a new program for economic recovery after the crisis caused by the pandemic, which the government is going to finalize and implement. (Translated by Elena Enache)
