Thousands of Romanians took into the street of Bucharest on Tuesday as Romanian MPs vote on whether to extend the use of the COVID health pass to the workplace.
Romania has the European Union’s second-lowest vaccination rate with just 39.6% of its 19.3 million population fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The average for the 31 countries in the EU/EEA are is 67.3%.
Efforts to boost the vaccination rate, including a campaign against misinformation, have largely failed and the new government — made up of the centre-right National Liberal Party (PNL), the leftist Social Democratic Party (PSD), and ethnic Hungarian UDMR — now wants to extend the use of the COVID pass to workplaces.
The pass has tested negative for COVID-19 during the previous 48 hours, or has recently recovered from the disease was introduced in late October to visit restaurants, shopping centres, non-essential shops, cultural venues, swimming-pools and gyms as the country was battling a surge in infections that was threatening to overwhelm its struggling health care system.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned in a new press statements about the Covid-19 surge in Europe.
“We express our worries about the spread of Covid-19 in Europe as the continent battles a fresh wave of infections.”
Regional director Dr Hans Kluge further said that they may record 500,000 more deaths by March.
The WHO official also said an increase in mask wearing could immediately help.
The warning comes as several nations report record-high infection rates and introduce full and partial lockdowns.
Kluge said factors like winter, insufficient vaccine coverage were behind the spread.
He called for increased vaccine uptake. He also called for the implementation of basic public health measures and new medical treatments to help fight the rise.
