December 5, 2021

A roundup of domestic and international news

România Internațional, 05.12.2021, 13:50

Covid-19RO. Bucharest
authorities are meeting today to establish the next steps after the first two
cases of SARS-CoV2 Omicron infection were confirmed in Romania – in people
repatriated on November 30 from South Africa. One of the patients is asymptomatic
and the other has very mild symptoms. The result of the sequencing of a third
sample collected from a sportsman from Baia Mare, also repatriated, with the
same plane on November 30 from South Africa, is still pending. The coronavirus pandemic
continues its declining trend in Romania. 35% fewer new cases and associated
deaths have been reported this week as compared to the previous one. The number
of hospitalized and intensive care patients has also been reduced by a quarter.
916 new cases of COVID-19 and 78 deaths, 5 of which from a previous reporting
period, have been announced today. The interest in vaccination remains low.
According to the latest assessment, only about 8,000 people have taken the
first dose of COVID serum in the last 24 hours. Over 7.4 million people have
been fully vaccinated in Romania.

Pandemic. Many countries
around the world are preparing measures to limit the spread of the new coronavirus
variant that seems to be more transmissible than Delta. First detected in South
Africa, Omicron infections have already been reported in about 40 countries. As
of Tuesday, passengers arriving in the UK will have to take a COVID test no
later than 48 hours before departure. Italy will ban the access of unvaccinated
people to most public places starting Monday. France, where 12 cases of Omicron
have been identified, has changed the sanitary conditions for entry into the
country. According to the RRA correspondent in Paris, all those coming from
outside the EU, including the vaccinated, will be required to present a
negative test taken no later than 48 hours in advance. Unvaccinated European
citizens are also required to show a negative result no later than 24 hours after
taking the test. In another move, more than 40,000 people, according to police
estimates, took part in a march against the lockdown and compulsory vaccination
against COVID-19 in Vienna on Saturday, Reuters reports. Following the rapid
proliferation of coronavirus infections, Austria became the first Western
European country to re-introduce the lockdown last month and also decided to
make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory starting February.

NATO. The Romanian frigate Regina Maria is
due to return in the military port of Constanta on Monday, from a mission in
the Mediterranean, where it participated, between October 27 and November 30,
in NATO traffic monitoring missions, part of a Standing NATO Maritime Group.
During the six weeks of the mission, the Romanian military ship also
participated in the multinational exercises Dogu Akdeniz 21,
organized by the Turkish Naval Forces, and NIRIIS 21, organized by
the Greek Naval Forces, along with over 50 ships, 8 submarines and dozens of
Allied and partner military aircraft.

Pope. Pope Francis on
Sunday called on the world to put an end to the current wrecking of
civilization in a speech at a migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, FP reports.
The Mediterranean is on its way to becoming a gloomy graveyard without
tombstones, said the sovereign pontiff, on his second visit to Lesbos since
2016. He lamented that little has changed with regard to the issue of
migration. Yesterday, in a speech to
local authorities, the Sovereign Pontiff pleaded in Athens for a common
migration policy in a ‘nationalism-torn’ Europe. It is the first visit by a
sovereign pontiff to the capital of Greece, a predominantly Orthodox country,
in the last two decades. Pope Francis went to Lesbos before, in 2016, but not to
Athens. He was thus following in the footsteps of John Paul II, who visited the
Greek capital in May 2001. He then apologized for the sins of Catholics against
the Orthodox, referring to the plunder of Constantinople in 1204. Earlier, Pope
Francis visited Cyprus, the EU state with the highest number of asylum
applications, according to the BBC.

Handball. The Romanian
women’s handball national team meets today, in Castello, the team of Kazakhstan,
in its second match in Group C of the World Championship hosted by Spain. The
Romanians started with a score victory, 39-11 with Iran, on Friday night.
Romania will play Norway on December 7. The first places in group C are held by
Norway and Romania with 2 points each, but with different goal averages,
followed by Kazakhstan and Iran both with 0 points. The top three will qualify
for the next round of the final tournament. Romania, which has not missed any
world final tournament, won the title in 1962, the silver medals in 1973 and
2005 and the bronze in 2015. Romania ranked 12th at the previous edition of the
World Championship, held in 2019, in Japan.