October 9, 2021 UPDATE

A roundup of domestic and international news

Newsroom, 09.10.2021, 19:18

Covid-19. 14,019 new cases of coronavirus infection were registered in the last 24
hours in Romania, after running some 67,500 tests, the Strategic Communication
Group announced on Saturday. During the same timeframe 282 Covid-19 related
deaths were also reported. According to the source, 1,593 patients are in
intensive care, and 28 of them are children. The Strategic Communication Group
has also announced that there are no available beds in the IC units across the
country, other than those especially saved for patients suffering from certain
diseases, who are also infected with the coronavirus. The head of the
Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat, has announced that talks are
under way with Hungary to transfer to that country the Covid-19 patients in
serious condition. The Government has extended the state of alert by another 30
days and wearing a mask is mandatory also outdoors, there where the incidence
is higher than 6 per one thousand inhabitants. In Bucharest, where the
infection rate has exceeded 12 per one thousand inhabitants, additional
measures were put in place as of Saturday, such as having companies with more
than 50 employees organize shifts, supplementing the number of public transport
vehicles and intensifying controls in markets. As regards the European Civil
Protection Mechanism, the interim PM Florin Citu has sated that Romania will
receive 200 oxygen concentrators, from the Netherland’s rescUE stocks and also
50 pieces of equipment from Poland.

Government. The main opposition party in Romania, the Social
Democratic Party, and the Save Romania Union, a former junior party in the
ruling coalition, continue their criticism of the way in which the ousted
PNL-UDMR Government allocated more than one billion lei, the equivalent of some
200 million Euro, from the reserve fund, to benefit local authorities. Several
mayors have called on the Government to rapidly review the allocation criteria.
In an open letter, they claim that the allocation was arbitrary and based on
political criteria only. The Development Ministry has stated that the money was
allocated fairly to all town halls, without any political bias, but the total
requested amount went beyond 11 billion lei, and the government could only
spare one.

Holocaust. The President of Romania,
Klaus Iohannis, signed several decoration decrees on the occasion of the
National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust. The decorations were awarded as a
token of respect for the suffering
endured during World War II, for the high moral standing they showed throughout
their lives, and for the efforts made to keep alive the memory of the victims
of the Holocaust, a tragedy that humanity must never live again, a communiqué released
on Saturday by the Presidential Administration reads. The Israeli Diaspora Minister Nachman Schai
will visit Romania and Sweden next week. According to the Radio Romania
correspondent in Israel, in Bucharest, he will participate, on Monday, in the
commemoration ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial, and in Malmö he will address
the International Forum for the Commemoration of the Holocaust and the Fight
against anti-Semitism. The Minister will meet with members of the Romanian
Jewish community, with representatives of the presidential administration, the
government and diplomatic corps. This year marks eight decades since the
regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu, allied with Nazi Germany, deported the Jews
from Bessarabia and Bukovina to Transnistria (east).

Pilgrimage. One of the largest orthodox pilgrimages in Europe has started
in Iasi, in eastern Romania, at the reliquary of Saint Parascheva, who is
celebrated on October 14th. Saint Parascheva was born near Constantinople, in
the early 11th century, and is considered the protector of the Medieval
Principality of Moldavia since 1641, when her relics were brought to Iasi by
ruler Vasile Lupu. The relics were a gift from the Ecumenical Patriarch, after
the Romanian ruler paid the Patriarchy’s debts to the Ottoman administration.

Football. Romania’s national football team lost, on Friday night, in
Hamburg, the match with the multiple world and European champion Germany, in
Group J of the preliminaries of the World Cup to be held in Qatar, next year.
Also on Friday, in the same group, the matches Iceland – Armenia, 1-1, and
Liechtenstein – North Macedonia, 0-4 were played. After seven matches
played by each team, Germany is the group leader, with 18 points, followed by
Armenia and North Macedonia, with 12. Romania has 10 points, Iceland 5 and
Liechtenstein one. Only the winner of the group goes directly to the final tournament,
while the team on the second position will play in the qualifiers. Romania has
not participated in a World Cup since the 1998 edition in France. (MI)