December 6, 2021
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România Internațional, 06.12.2021, 13:55
PANDEMIC – In Romania, the number of people who have been fully vaccinated has exceeded 7.5 million. Since the start of mass vaccination, on December 27, 2020, more than 15 million vaccine doses have been administered. In another development, the two Romanians repatriated from South Africa and confirmed with the Omicron variant are feeling well. One has mild symptoms and the other is asymptomatic, authorities announced. They are both vaccinated. The head of the Department for Emergencies, Raed Arafat, has given assurances that new measures will be taken in the upcoming period to boost vaccination. 803 new infections with Covid-19 have been reported in the last 24 hours in Romania and 54 related deaths.
MEASURES – In Bucharest, the National Committee for Emergencies convenes today to decide on the sanitary measures to be enforced during the winter holidays. Tougher measures were put in place on Sunday for people who enter Romania, in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant. Thus, people travelling to Romania from outside the EU, must provide a negative test taken no sooner than 48 hours prior to the arrival, while those who are not vaccinated or have not had the disease in the last 6 months, must quarantine. Moreover, all people entering the country in the upcoming period must fill in a form that will help authorities localise them in case of an epidemiological investigation.
ST. NICHOLAS – Christians all over the world celebrate Saint Nicholas today. He was a 4th Century bishop who liked to give gifts secretly and help the poor. Born in 270 in the then-Greek town of Patara, he travelled to Palestine and Egypt, before returning to become bishop of Myra. The town, now known as Demre, lies on the southern coast of Turkey. He was imprisoned during the reign of Roman emperor Diocletian, but later released by his successor Constantine. After his death in 343AD, his burial site by his church in Myra became a shrine. Sailors stole his remains in 1087 and took them back to Bari, Italy, where they remained enshrined. The holy relic of the right hand of St. Nicholas has been preserved at St. George Church in Bucharest since the 16th century. In Romania, more than 800 thousand Romanians celebrate their name day today.
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. On Saturday, 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 team defeated on Sunday in Castello, the team of Kazakhstan, 38-17, in their second match in Group C of the IHFs World Championship hosted by Spain. The Romanians thus qualified to the competitions main groups. The Romanians started with a score victory, 39-11 with Iran, on Friday night. 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. (EE)
