April 21, 2020 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news
Newsroom, 21.04.2020, 19:59
Covid-19 Romania Romanias President Klaus Iohannis has announced that, after May 15th, when the state of emergency expires, if the number of infections and deaths caused by Covid-19 has dropped and the measures taken by authorities are observed, a gradual relaxation of restrictions will be considered. The announcement was made on Tuesday after a meeting with the PM Ludovic Orban, part of the Cabinet and the head of the Department for Emergency Situations Raed Arafat. According to the latest report issued by the Department, 498 people have died of Covid-19 in Romania, and the number of confirmed cases has exceeded 9,200. 2,153 people have been cured and discharged from hospital. Abroad, another Romanian died of Covid-19 in Belgium. So far, 947 Romanians in the Diaspora have been confirmed as being infected with the new coronavirus, mostly in Italy (633). 62 of them have died.
Pandemic So far, some 2.5 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus and more than 170 thousand have died of Covid-19 across the world. The US is the hardest hit country with more than 900 thousand cases and some 49 thousand deaths. Europe reports half of the total number of global infections and more than 60% of deaths. Spain, Italy, Germany, France and the UK remain the most affected European countries. The number of daily infections has dropped though in Italy, which has two regions where no new cases have been reported lately. There are signs that the pandemic is slowing down, and the world leaders are now focusing on restarting the economy. Several European states, among which Germany, started the week with a relaxation of restrictions, while continuing to call for caution, isolation and social distancing. Some small clothing shops, flower shops and book stores have been opened, and schools will be reopened gradually as of May 4th. The Germany authorities claim the epidemic is under control in their country, but Chancellor Angela Merkel has excluded a sudden relaxation of all restrictions. In Austria and Denmark too the small shops have reopened. Norway has reopened nurseries and in Serbia, as of Tuesday, the elderly are allowed to take walks around the house three times a week.
Dacia Mioveni The Dacia Mioveni Factory in southern Romania, owned by the French group Renault, resumed part of its manufacturing activity on Tuesday. On May 4th the factory will start working at full capacity. The company announced that, for the period when the activity was suspended, measures were developed and implemented to protect the employees against the new coronavirus. The Dacia factory in Mioveni stopped working in mid March when the employees were furloughed because of the coronavirus pandemic. In another development, the American car maker Ford has announced that most of its employees in Craiova, southern Romania, will remain furloughed until April 30.
Romanian army 70 of the soldiers deployed by the Romanian Army in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Central African Republic, under the NATO missions Resolute Support, Inherent Resolve, and the EU training and counseling mission respectively, will be brought back to Romania, the National Defense Ministry has announced. According to the ministry, this is a measure to resize the military staff that will be part of international missions in the coming period, against the Covid-19 pandemic. The soldiers will go back to the theaters of operations if there are requests from the commanders of the said missions. Other NATO and EU countries have taken similar measures. Currently, there are 1236 Romanian soldiers deployed in theaters of operations and missions abroad.
Oil In the short run, Romania will not be affected by the drastic drop in the oil price in the US, as oil from the domestic production is being predominantly consumed, the Romanian Minister of Economy, Energy and the Business Environment Virgil Popescu has stated. Oil prices plunged on Monday below ten dollars a barrel, which is a record low, as the demand for energy shriveled because of the coronavirus pandemic. While production dropped by 10%, the demand diminished by 30% at global level, according to an analysis conducted by Reuters. The big players in the field are worried that they will no longer have enough storage facilities. Some one million tones of refined products are currently stocked in some 30 oil tanks anchored near the European shores.
Holocaust On Tuesday, Israel commemorated the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. The current situation makes us aware, once more, that life is the most precious asset, said the Romanian PM Ludovic Orban in a message conveyed on the occasion. In a world of globalization, people have learned to accept diversity, and stigmatization, be it ethnic, social, cultural or religious, is not compatible with a civilized society, and nothing can justify intolerance, social hatred or anti-Semitism, the message also reads. Romanian society, marked too, in the past century, by the atrocities of the Holocaust, is now functioning by the rules of democracy, nondiscrimination and fight against any form of hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and racism, and we are committed to going along this path, PM Ludovic Orban also wrote in his message. (M.Ignatescu)
