Six million vaccinated people in Romania

The vaccination pace has improved spectacularly in Romania, but the country is still behind EU rates

Eugen Coroianu, 27.10.2021, 14:00

On Tuesday Romania went over 6 million citizens fully
vaccinated against Covid 19, with the immunisation pace rising spectacularly of
late.

The reasons
seem to be, on the one hand, the new restrictions affecting the unvaccinated, and
on the other hand fear of the complications entailed by the disease, in a
country with a healthcare system overwhelmed by the pandemic.

Romania
remains one but last in the EU in terms of the vaccination rate, and below the
world average. The total number of doses administered since the 27 December
2020 is now over 12 million, most of them Pfizer, followed by
Johnson&Johnson, AstraZeneca and Moderna.

The head
of the vaccination programme, Valeriu Gheorghiţă, reiterated that should the
current vaccination pace remain steady, more than 70% of the Romanians over 12
years of age could be immunised by the end of the year.

At the
moment, the national vaccine coverage rate is 33% of the total population,
including people with just one vaccine dose. The highest rate is reported in
the capital Bucharest – nearly 60%, Cluj (north-west) is over 52%, whereas
Suceava County (north-east) only has a vaccination rate of 24%.

Valeriu
Gheorghiţă also announced that over 40% of those vaccinated in the first stage
have also received a booster dose after at least 6 months. More than 61% of
them are vulnerable people, patients with chronic conditions and aged over 65. Also,
some 19% of them are employed in the healthcare and social assistance fields.

Gheorghiţă
also said that over the past few weeks new vaccination centres have been
opened, and some of those temporarily suspended have been reactivated. Wherever
the situation required it, their working hours have been extended. Consequently,
across the country 706 vaccination centres are now operating, with over 1,000
lanes.

Valeriu
Gheorghiţă said solutions are being searched to step up vaccination in rural
communities. The authorities consider activating family physician practices, where
available, or deploying mobile teams to roll out the vaccine in locations
provided by the local community. Another option is to transport people to the
nearest vaccination centre.

Meanwhile,
every weekend until the end of the year Bucharest will hold so-called vaccination
marathons in every sector. The manager of the University Emergency Hospital in
the capital city, Cătălin Cîrstoiu, recently warned that Romania is losing a
community as large as a village to COVID-19 every day, as the number of
COVID-related deaths is 400-500 a day. And vaccination is the solution, Cîrstoiu
emphasised. (tr. A.M. Popescu)