On November 2nd, Romania reported it’s highest number of COVID-19 related daily deaths. According to the official data, 591 people lost their battle to COVID-19 as the fourth wave took the lives of 1 person, every 2.5 minutes and a total of 10,700 in the past month.

Since the new restrictions were imposed on October 25th, there has been a overall decrease in the amount of new cases being recorded in the country, with 6,993 new cases being recorded on November 1st, the lowest number of new cases since September 27th 2021. However, the following day, new recorded cases jumped up to 11,703.

70% by the end of the year

Last week, Valeriu Gheorghita, the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign, said that Romania will likely hit the 70% vaccination target by the end of the year, if the current pace is maintained.

According to the government, over 1 million people received their first dose between September 20th and October 24th, with most of them being under the age of 60.

He continued by saying that “450,676 people were vaccinated in the last week alone, between October 18 and October 24, which practically represents an increase of 110% compared to the previous week”.

Romania is still second to last in the EU for full uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations, however, since the new restrictions were introduced on October 25th, there has been a sharp increase in amount of new doses being given, now that there’s a nationwide requirement to have a COVID-19 “Green Certificate” in order to access certain public venues and attend events. Unfortunately, there has been a constant decrease over the past few days.

• October 25: 110,000 first doses administered
• October 28: 90,950 first doses administered
• October 29: 82,174 first doses administered
• October 31: 41,196 first doses administered

At present, 37.2% of Romania’s adult population is vaccinated, when taking into consideration the full population of Romania, the vaccination rate is 30.8%.

However, the target of 70% of the end of the year is apparently highly reliant upon Parliament’s approval of the introduction of a law where the “COVID-19 Green Certificate” would be required for certain professional categories. The law would require certain individuals, across virtually all public and private buildings to have a green pass or face termination after 30 days.

The bill was not endorsed by the Romanian Senate, after it only received endorsement from 67 senators, two fewer than what was needed.

Valeriu Gheorghiță explained that the country is highly unlikely to reach the target if the COVID-19 “Green Certificate” requirement is not passed, saying that “it will be hard to reach this vaccination coverage in the coming months.”

He explained that the decrease from 110,000 per day to 82,000 and important once and stated, “only through an effort at the level of the entire society we can exceed the vaccination rate of 70% by the end of the year”, which would mean at least 80,000 new first doses, every day for the next two months.

“Over the next two months, we should vaccinate another 4.8 million people with at least one dose and, in this way, reach 12 million vaccinated people. Of course, with one dose, but this is important because someone who received the first dose will complete the vaccination scheme, and the impact of the fifth wave will be greatly reduced,” said Valeriu Gheorghiță and also gave example of countries in western and northern Europe, where the vaccination rates increased to around 80-90% after the COVID-19 Green Certificate was introduced due to rates hovering around 50-60%.

There have also been reports of “fake Green Certificates” being circulated in Romania with some people choosing to purchase a fake certificate, rather than receive a free vaccine and cost as little as €35 (173 lei).

Some of the certificates are actually being generated by entering data into the country’s vaccination system and falsifying the status of vaccination.

#1 for New Daily Deaths per 1 mln/ Population

New daily deaths in Romania continue to set records since the pandemic began. Yesterday, according to Worldometers, Romania recorded the highest amount of new deaths per 1 million population in the world.

Romania is also currently at the 20th position in the world for total deaths attributed to COVID-19 since the the start of the pandemic and 11th when taking into consideration of the amount of deaths compared to the population of the country.