With intensive care units (ICUs) overflowing with COVID-19 patients, Romanian hospitals are living through hell these days for the first time since the pandemic began. In the last week, Romania has ranked second in the list of deaths from coronavirus in the world, with 18 deaths per million inhabitants on average, according to data from the University of Oxford, only behind the small Caribbean country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The main cause is that only 30% of the population is immunized. To try to stop the wave of cases, which has led the country to beat its maximum number of deaths per day (574 this Tuesday), the authorities have imposed a curfew from eight in the afternoon to five in the morning for people without vaccinate, as well as the closure of educational centers for the next two weeks. Some measures that will begin to be applied on Monday.
“We are plummeting into the abyss,” explains Elena Copaciu, an ICU doctor at the Matei Bals Hospital in Bucharest. “In 25 years of experience, I have not felt so much frustration and impotence in the face of the indifference of the citizens and the extreme passivity of our leaders when it comes to informing about the importance of the vaccine and taking measures,” continues Copaciu with an indignant voice.
In the absence of beds in intensive care, patients, some of them dying, form long queues at the doors of the emergency services, waiting for a free space, possibly due to the death of another patient. And some hospitals have converted ambulances into waiting rooms with oxygen equipment. Copaciu says that he has seen terrible scenes: “The sick are struggling for an oxygen supply; each one fights for his life ”.
Added to this is the exhaustion of health workers. An image, which became viral on social networks last Sunday, shows a health assistant at the San Pantelimon Emergency Clinic Hospital, in the country’s capital, Bucharest, exhausted on top of a cardboard box. The campaign of the government entity that promotes vaccination cries out on Facebook: “Exhaustion… A nurse rests for a few moments, among too many serious cases in the ICU. Unfortunately, all beds, chairs and tables are occupied by patients in serious condition. AND? Emergencies keep coming! We hope the message reaches everyone who is still thinking about it. Please: get vaccinated. It is the most useful protection solution against covid-19 ″. The morgue of the University Hospital in Bucharest is packed. Their refrigerators are full and there are missing plastic bags to cover the corpses crammed into the basement corridors.
Romania’s hitherto impassive President Klaus Iohannis on Tuesday called the situation a “national drama of terrible proportions.” And the alarms have also sounded in the World Health Organization (WHO), which estimates that at the current rate the country would need two and a half years to reach 70% of the vaccinated population. Faced with a scenario that it has considered “unprecedented in Europe”, the WHO has announced that it will provide advice and send 200 oxygen generators to the country.
Given the vertiginous upturn in cases, which surpassed its records on Tuesday, with 574 deaths and almost 19,000 new infections in one day (Spain reported 1,285 positives on Wednesday and 71 deaths in a week), authorities and health specialists have asked vehemently in the last hours to the citizens to be vaccinated. The disease has already caused 43,039 deaths and those infected exceed one and a half million, in a country of 19.2 million inhabitants. The Bucharest College of Physicians has sent a dramatic message to citizens: “We are desperate because every day we lose hundreds of patients; because no matter how hard we try, this parasitic disease takes away our sick; because we often face each other unarmed and empty-handed; and because many times we hear: ‘I can’t breathe … I’m not vaccinated.’
95% of the deceased were not immunized. Dr. Copaciu assures that it was already expected that this wave would reach high levels of infected, but not so tragic. “The permissiveness with which certain media that propagate conspiracy theories are treated and the fierce struggle for power among politicians have led to a relaxation of restrictive measures,” he asserts.
The role of the Church
The incidence in Romania stands at 1,000 cases per 100,000 inhabitants at 14 days, when it was 20 at the end of August. The Romanian Orthodox Church, which For months he has sent messages of skepticism towards vaccination, urging the population on Wednesday to listen “with maximum attention” exclusively to the advice of health experts, but without explicitly asking people to be immunized.
Cristian Pantazi, journalist and analyst for the local media G4Media, explains the situation outside Bucharest: “The authorities of a city in the north of the country have bought an excavator to bury the dead and children have died even without a chronic illness; we must act now ”. Pantazi believes that the green certificate (a document that certifies that a person has been vaccinated, has tested negative in a recent test or has passed the disease) should be required to access all kinds of shops and events. “In addition, we must isolate the extreme right and their insane slogans against the vaccination campaign,” underlines Pantazi, referring to an anti-vaccination demonstration that attracted thousands of people at the beginning of October in front of the government headquarters.
Romania is facing, in parallel, a political crisis, after the country’s Parliament brought down the government of Prime Minister Florin Citu at the beginning of the month. Pantazi laments: “Neither that three members of the same family have lost their fight against the coronavirus in 24 hours, nor that two patients also perished in an ambulance while waiting for a hospital place to enter, do they manage to get the parties to agree to stop this health massacre ”.
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