November 13, 2020

A roundup of local and international news.

Luana Pleşea, 13.11.2020, 13:55

State
of alert. The government has decided to extend the state of alert by a further
thirty days as of Saturday. The head of the department for emergency situations
Raed Arafat said the sanitary measures introduced earlier remain in place and
will also apply to the parliamentary elections due on 6th December.
He said the health and foreign ministries will issue a joint decree referring
specifically to the voting stations abroad.
Arafat also said the government was planning to temporarily allow
medical school graduates and residents to practice medicine so that they can
work, under supervision, on wards treating coronavirus patients. More than
324,000 coronavirus infections have been recorded so far in Romania. Almost
9,500 new cases were reported on Friday. 1,149 people are in intensive care.
174 new deaths were recorded, taking the death toll to 8,694.

List.
The National Committee for Emergency Situations has updated the list of
countries with a high epidemiological risk. The amber list countries include
Armenia, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Jordan, Italy,
Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Portugal and Hungary.
Arrivals from these countries are requested to isolate for 14 days. Travellers
to Spain from high-risk regions or countries will be obliged to produce a
negative result to a Covid test, beginning on 23rd November. The
Romanian foreign ministry is emphasising that the test must be taken no longer
than 72 hours prior to entering Spanish territory and that the document must be
written in Spanish or English. The ministry also recalls that all persons
travelling to Spain must fill in a form about their state of health before
travelling.

Coronavirus world. More than 53.1
million people have been infected with coronavirus globally and more than 1.3 million
have died. In many European countries, the situation remains critical and
governments are taking additional measures. A nigh-time curfew comes into
effect today in Greece and Portugal has expanded restrictions to more areas.
Slovenia has banned almost all public gatherings, and Hungary is in lockdown
for at least a month. In Italy, three regions in the north are seeing new
restriction beginning today. France has seen a 16% drop in new cases in the last
7 days, but the situation ion is sensitive in hospitals, where the second wave
is expected to peak next week.

Statistics. The GDP dropped by 4.4% in the eurozone and by
4.3% in the European Union in the third quarter of 2020 compared with the same
period last year. Spain saw the biggest drop, at 8.7%, while Romania recorded a 6% drop, according to a report by the EU statistical office Eurostat. The
data referring to Romania were supported by the country’s National Institute
for Statistics, which published a report saying the economy shrank by 6% in the
third quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, but it grew
by 5.6% compared with the previous quarter.

Moldova elections.
In the Republic of Moldova, the election campaign for the second round of
presidential elections on Sunday comes to a close today. In the first round of
the election, former pro-European PM Maia Sandu got over 36% of the votes, and
the incumbent pro-Russian Socialist president, Igor Dodon, under 33%. The
candidates favouring the reunification with Romania as well as the pro-European candidates, who left the
presidential race in the first round, made public their unconditional support
for Maia Sandu in the second round. The third-placed candidate, the pro-Russian
populist Renato Usatyi, has urged his voters, some 17% of those who voted in
the first round, to vote for the former
prime minister. On Tuesday, Romania’s President, Klaus Iohannis expressed joy
at the news of the vote for the West-leaning candidate and deemed it a vote in
favour of the irreversible democratic evolution of the Republic of Moldova, a
country that has permanently and unequivocally been supported by Romania.

UK visas. EU citizens will be able
to travel to the UK visa-free after 1st January 2021 for a period of
6 months, according to the new immigration system made public by the British
government. EU citizens can travel to
the United Kingdom for several times during that time span, but they are not
allowed to live in the UK, under the multiple entry and extended visa mechanism,
nor are they allowed to work or access public funds. Those willing to work,
live or study in the UK must request a visa. This visa will be granted based on
a system of points, after the applicants submit a visa request, on the website
of the British government. Points are
granted in keeping with a set of requirements that applicants should meet. (CM)