December 24, 2021 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 24.12.2021, 20:00

CHRISTMAS For Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic Christians around the world,
Saturday is Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, one of the
biggest holiday for the Christian world. On Christmas Eve, a common tradition in Romania
is caroling, a ritual that includes ceremonial texts, dancing and singing.
Carolers, especially children and youth, convey good wishes and are rewarded by
hosts with fruit, pretzels, sweets or money. Priests go from house to
house anouncing the birth of Christ. Christmas calls on all of us to be generous, like the shepherds who
adored Christ, to give humble love to all around us, to give presents to children
as well as to the elderly, to the poor, to the lonely, to the mourning and to
the suffering, said Daniel, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Christmas
is marked by special services in churches and monasteries, and family
gatherings and traditions.Old Style Orthodox believers in Russia, Ukraine, Serbia,
and Georgia celebrate Christmas on 7th January.

COVID-19 The fifth wave of the pandemic, which is more
severe than the previous one, is expected to hit in Romania in less than three
weeks, the country’s Interior Minister Lucian Bode has announced. The spread of
the Omicron variant will be accelerated by the presence of Romanian workers
from abroad, who are arriving in large numbers for the winter holidays. The
number of new infections is still low in Romania, with 717 new cases
announced on Friday. 44 related fatalities were also announced. Since the
beginning of the pandemic, 1.8 million Covid infections have been reported in
Romania and 58,000 related fatalities. Shortly after the authorisation of the
anti-Covid drug, Paxlovid, in the USA, Romania’s health minister, Alexandru
Rafila is making moves to import the new drug as soon as possible. Rafila has
already had a series of meetings with representatives of Pfizer, the company
that produces the vaccine. According to the latest surveys, the drug reduces the
risk of hospitalization and death by almost 90%. The US has also authorised an
anti-viral pill produced by Merck.

LIST The National Committee for Emergency Situations
has updated the list of the countries with a high infection risk. Malta entered
the red tier due to its high infection rate, whereas Romania’s neighbour, the
ex-soviet Republic of Moldova is now a green-list country. The committee has
also approved the categories of employees who are exempted from quarantine
rules, including the crews of ships sailing under Romanian flag, as well as
drivers of freighters up to 2.4 tons and of passenger buses over 9 seats coming
from the EU or the EU economic area.

POLICE Over 8,000 policemen are on duty during the
Christmas period in Romania, to discourage and prevent crime. Policemen will be
patrolling together with gendarme troops and in some cases they will be
accompanied by representatives of the Food Safety Authority to various shopping
areas to check the observance of the Covid-19 safety rules. Road police will be
assisted by helicopters to monitor the traffic and prevent any wrongdoing on
Romania’s motorways. (tr. A.M. Popescu)