Romania: One of Highest COVID-19 Mortality Rates in the World

Romania currently has one of the highest mortality rates in the world, with Valeriu Gheorghiță informing that Romania is already in the same scenario as Italy was last year.

According to Our World In Data, Romania registered 18.2 new deaths per one million of the population, falling second only to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The uptake of vaccines has started to increase, with 34.8% of the adult population now being vaccinated, and 28.7% of the total population. However, this still puts Romania second to last in the EU, after Bulgaria, which has only 23.9% uptake among adults. Officials state that the lack of uptake in Romania is due to vaccine mistrust.

Hospitals across the country are already operating at over-capacity.

Other EU countries have been sending COVID-19 drugs and equipment to Romania, which is currently seeing a huge surge of new cases, largely among the unvaccinated majority of the population. The WHO (World Health Organization) has also said that it is increasing its support to Romania in response to the soaring case numbers, which are significantly higher than they were in the previous peak.

A senior expert will be sent to the country, in order to help strengthen the response to the pandemic, along with 34,000 rapid COVID tests and around 200 oxygen concentrators. The aim will be to provide technical support to cover "surveillance, clinical guidance, risk communications, and community engagement to vaccine roll-out", WHO Europe said in a statement.