October 15, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news.

Newsroom, 15.10.2021, 19:59

CORONAVIRUS — 15,828 new cases of Covid-19 infection were reported in the last 24 hours in Romania, out of 67,000 tests, the Groups for Strategic Communication announced on Friday afternoon. In the same interval 363 related deaths were reported and 1,729 patients in intensive care. Of the latter, 38 are children. 20 doctors and nurses from the Republic of Moldova will travel to Romania to offer assistance in the modular hospital in Letcani, in the north east.

VACCINE – The American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said on Friday that they had submitted data supporting the use of their COVID-19 vaccine in children aged between five and less than 12 years to the European Medicines Agency, Reuters reports. Although the vaccine is currently not allowed for that age group, it has been authorized for use in children over 12 years of age in both the United States and the European Union. According to Reuters, the companies earlier this month asked U.S. regulators to also grant emergency use authorization of the shot for young children, and an advisory panel to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to meet next month to review the data.

DOTA 2 – The National Arena in Bucharest venues the world’s most important e-sports competition — the Tenth International (TI 10) for Dota 2. The group stage ran until October 10, with the main stage beginning on October 12, and the finals planned for October 17. Teams will be battling it out in Dota 2 games for a portion of a 40-million dollar prize pool. The tournament can be watched online, by 100 million people, organizers have said. There will be financial gains for the Romanian state as well, as a 16% tax on the total awards of 40 million dollars will be paid. TI10 was originally planned to run in Stockholm in August 2021, until the Swedish Sports federation announced that it would not accept e-sports into the sports federation, meaning that Dota 2 players would not be exempt from travel restrictions.

GOVERNMENT – PM designate Dacian Ciolos will present Parliament on Monday with a governing programme and a list of ministers, USR announced on Friday evening. Ciolos will go to Parliament with a proposal of cabinet made up exclusively by USR party members, after the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Union of Ethnic Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) refused to rebuild the ruling coalition. We remind you that the consultations between the former ruling partners USR, PNL and UDMR, initially scheduled for Friday, and aimed at rebuilding the coalition were cancelled later on the day. According to Liberal sources, Florin Citu, leader of PNL and interim PM, announced Dacian Ciolos, PM designate and leader of USR, that the meeting was pointless. The Liberals say that USR must negotiate with the opposition parties PSD and AUR, as together they had ousted the Citu government by no confidence vote. According to the UDMR leader, Kelemen Hunor, the PM designate failed to reinstate a minimum level of trust, which would have allowed him to rebuild the coalition.

LIST — In Bucharest, the National Committee for Emergencies has updated the list of countries with high epidemiological risk, putting on the red list Ukraine and Gibraltar. Also, Albania, Botswana, Curacao and the United States Virgin Islands entered the yellow zone, following a decrease in Covid infections, a zone that also includes the Netherlands, Gabon and Montserrat. Switzerland, Canada, Jordan, Kazakhstan and Andorra are now in the green zone.

PROTESTS – Protests were staged in Italy on Friday at the requirement for all Italian workers to show a Covid pass. The Green Pass shows whether you have had the Covid vaccine, recovered from it or had a negative test. Most Italians support the green pass being compulsory, in the context of a vaccination rate of more than 80% in the country, but employees of ports and road transport are against it and threat to halt activity. About 6,000 workers went on strike outside Trieste port, a maritime gateway for northern Italy, Germany, Austria and central Europe. (EE)