March 7, 2021 UPDATE

Covid infection rates are on the rise./ Romanias proportion of women in Parliament and government among lowest in EU, says Eurostat report ahead of International Womens Day.

Newsroom, 07.03.2021, 19:15

Covid Romania. More than 1,174,000 million
people have been vaccinated against Covid-19 in Romania, where a new batch of over 224,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses is being delivered
on Monday. Almost
3,300 new Covid cases were recorded in this country on Sunday, with the total
number of infections now passing 828,000 and the death toll 20,900. Some 1,100 Covid patients are in intensive
care. Amid rising infection rates, the education and health ministries issued a
joint order saying that pupils in their finals years will continue to go to
school even if Romania enters the red tier, in a combination of remote and in-person
learning. This decision remains in place until the infection rate hits six cases
per 1,000 inhabitants, when it will be reviewed. Wearing face masks in class is
mandatory, with the exception of music school pupils studying wind instruments,
of all children during physical exercise classes and of pre-school children. A
few counties are in the red zone, reporting more than 3 cases per 1,000
inhabitants over the course of 14 days, namely Timiş (west), Maramureş
(north-west), Ilfov (south), Cluj (north-west) and Braşov (centre). The capital
Bucharest has also re-entered the red zone, with restaurants and cafes now
closed for business indoors. The western city of Timişoara and four
neighbouring villages will go into lockdown on Sunday midnight because of high
infection rates. A few hundred people staged a protest
on Sunday in Bucharest against draft legislation on vaccination under
debate in Parliament.

Hospitals. Romania will build more hospitals in the next four years
using European funds. This promise was made by prime minister Florin Cîţu, who
said he would like this to be a legacy of his government. He explained that the
only condition for using the European money is for the new hospitals to be
finalised by 2026, just like the other projects carried out under the EU’s
Recovery and Resilience Facility, under which Romania can benefit from 30
billion euros worth of funding. Cîţu said this instrument will be simple and transparent,
and that private projects and entities will also be eligible for funding,
alongside public companies and institutions. Prime minister Cîţu said earlier
that education will receive some 9% of the budget of the recovery and
resilience fund, while healthcare will receive some 3 billion euros.

Pope Iraq. On the final day of his historic
trip to Iraq, Pope Francis met on Sunday members of the Christian community in
northern Iraq. In Mosul, amid the ruins of the churches destroyed by the
Islamic State jihadist organisation, the pontiff said the Christians’ exodus
from the Middle East was an incalculable loss. The occupation of a third of
Iraq’s territory by the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017 was the latest episode
in a series of conflicts that drove most Iraqi Christians into exile. Today,
only 400,000 of the country’s inhabitants identify as Christians, compared with
1.3 million in 2003, before the US-led invasion. After Mosul, the pope travelled to Qaraqosh, where he met the faithful in Al-Tahira church,
which was restored for this occasion after being burnt to the ground by the jihadists
in 2014.

Statistics. The proportion of women holding seats in the national
Parliaments of EU member states grew from 21% in 2004 to 33% in 2020, according
to statistics published by Eurostat. Although this percentage varies
significantly across the Union, no country has more women than men in
Parliament. Last year, the highest proportion of women in Parliament was
recorded in Sweden (almost 50%), Belgium (43%) and Spain (42%), while Hungary
and Malta had the lowest percentages (both 13%), alongside Romania and the
Czech Republic (with 20%). With respect to the proportion of women in
government in 2020, Finland had the highest level (55%), followed by Austria
(53%), Sweden (52%), France (51%) and Belgium (50%), while the lowest numbers
were recorded in Malta (8%), Greece (11%), Estonia (13%) and Romania (17%). Eurostat
published this report ahead of International Women’s Day on 8th
March.

Tennis. Several Romanian players are
in competition at the Dubai WTA tennis tournament worth 1.84 million dollars in
prize money and which got under way on Sunday. Sorana
Cîrstea (67 WTA)
and Patricia Țig (61 WTA) went straight to the
main draw, while Ana Bogdan (100 WTA) and Irina Begu (72
WTA) had to go through the qualifiers. Two Romanian players are also in competition in the
doubles. Simona Halep, the winner of the Dubai singles
trophy in 2020, is not playing this year. (CM)