Covid: Romania’s health system torn apart by the pandemic

“School holidays start on Monday,” President Klaus Iohannis said grimly.

Initially for two weeks, but no one dares to guess when the children might return, as Romania is in the throes of a wave of Covid-19 far more lethal than anything it has experienced so far.

To make matters worse, Romania has not had an effective government since the beginning of the month.

The purple and red spots on the map, which indicate high levels of the virus, adjusted daily by researchers from the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, continue to spread.

Romania’s 2,000 intensive care beds are all full and patients now have to wait outside. The first 50 critically ill patients were transferred to hospitals in Hungary and Poland.

“Sometimes it seems to me that the whole country has become an intensive care unit,” said Dorel Sandesc, head of intensive care at the hospital in Timisoara in western Romania.

“It’s a national failure at all levels. We are seeing a kind of national blindness, caused by lack of education, lack of civility,” Dr Sandesc, vice president of the Romanian Society of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, told the Puterea website. in Cincea.

Vaccination levels now stand at just over 29% of the entire population and 34% of the adult population, the second lowest in the EU after Bulgaria.

Politicians are blaming the public for refusing to get vaccinated and for believing conspiracy theories about the danger of vaccines.

Public opinion blames politicians – for bad leadership, inadequate healthcare and, most importantly, for vanity and corruption.

This weekend, in the capital, Bucharest, the latest “vaccination marathon” is taking place, with six centers open 24 hours a day, to encourage the reluctant. In the first two hours of Friday, more than 1,000 people received the jab.

In June, Romania’s decision to relax restrictions was very popular and loudly heralded by then Prime Minister Florin Citu. Medical commentators felt he was reckless and irresponsible.

The Romanian health system, exhausted by years of neglect and corruption, is falling apart, despite the daily heroism of the medical staff.

Now, on an average of seven days, 15,000 people a day test positive in this population of 19.4 million:

At the vaccination center in Rosiori de Vede, a small town almost two hours southwest of Bucharest, they have just moved the vaccination center from the sports stadium to a retirement club with only two rooms.

“We had to downsize because the gym was too big for the low number of people getting vaccinated in our city,” says Liliana Catrinoiu, director of the center.

“A large part of the population preferred to believe all the alarmist and sensational news related to vaccination”.

During the summer, Romania sold unwanted vaccines to Ireland, Denmark and Vietnam due to low domestic interest.

From Monday, masks will be mandatory nationwide, inside and outside buildings, and non-vaccinated people will not be able to go out onto the street after 20:00. How strictly this will be enforced is another question.

In Piata Unirii in Timisoara, a waiter from an exclusive bar overheard a customer tell another that he was not vaccinated, just as he was placing their drinks on the table.

“Drink quickly,” he observed, looking around for signs of the Gendarmerie. “But then you have to leave.”

At a wedding last weekend in the northeastern town of Botosani, the groom was denied entry to his wedding party after testing positive, according to local media.

There was no information on the couple’s whereabouts later that evening.

The Orthodox Church in Romania has been harshly criticized by medical professionals for questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines, although a Church spokesperson last week publicly urged people to get vaccinated.

“In the first wave of the pandemic, Father Bartolomeu died,” Father Atal, a monk from the Orthodox monastery of Dervent, on the bank of the Danube River in eastern Romania, wrote to me.

“Then the rest of us went through Covid with mild symptoms or got vaccinated.”

There are currently three cases in the monastery, one 78, another 35, another 30. All with moderate symptoms, all in isolation in their rooms.

“I go down to the river at least once a week. It flows quietly. The river has seen other pandemics and knows that in the end man wins, with all the sacrifices that it entails.”

Additional reporting by Mircea Barbu.