With the focus of festivals, summer holidays and the removal of restrictions, life has in Romania has returned to pre-pandemic conditions, with the exception that Romania, like the rest of Europe, is currently facing economic struggles.

Unfortunately, despite this distraction, the COVID-19 virus is still very much among us and the number of infections has started to increase rapidly over the last few weeks.

Between June 13th – 19th, the Health Ministry reported a total of 2,609 new cases of COVID-19, which then increased to 3,974 the following week. These numbers might not seem like much, until the newly recorded cases between June 27th and July 3rd, exceeded 7,700 over 7 days and now we're looking at 15,000 new cases over the past 7 days. The sudden jump of cases is something of concern to officials, however, in a statement, Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said, “I think the peak will be around 10-12,000 cases recorded daily. But, I repeat, the number of cases is not important, the evolution of these cases is important, whether or not it involves hospitalization, if there will be mild forms of the disease in which symptomatic treatment and isolation for a few days may be sufficient, then we will have no problem,”.

Rate in Cluj-Napoca

The situation in Cluj is following a similar trend over the past few weeks. A sudden jump in cases as the city enters into one of its busiest and most active periods with a number of festivals taking place over the next few months.

On June 12th, 2022, the cumulative rate of COVID-19 cases in Cluj-Napoca was 0.7/1000 and actually dropped to 0.64 on June 16th, which was it's lowest rate since August 25th, 2021.

However, by July 12th, the rate has increased to 2.71/1000 and continues to trend upwards.

There continue to be admissions to ICU and Cluj County has also been seeing increases in the amount of people who required intensive care treatment as a result of the COVID-19 infection. Sadly 2 new deaths were recorded over July 4th – 5th, which, according to the data, were the first recorded deaths since, May 23rd, after 41 days of no fatalities in the entire county.

Vaccination Status

Romania is the 2nd-least vaccinated country in the European Union with less than 43% of it's population being fully vaccinated.

Back at the start of June, Romania, along with several other Eastern European countries expressed their desire to stop purchasing new vaccines as less than 15% of the vaccines which were ordered had been used and the country is struggling to donate the oversupply.

Under former Prime Minister, Florin Cîțu, the country order over 120 million vaccines, but has used under 17 million doses. The reason has been pinned on the distrust of state institutions as well as poor vaccine education.

From July 1st 2022, COVID-19 vaccinations can only be performed at Family Medical practices and Romania has even started providing 4th doses, despite there being no recommendation from the World Health Organization.