"Every day Covid wipes out a village in Romania". With these words Catalin Cirstoiu, head of the emergency hospital of the University of Bucharest, commented on the latest, very heavy data on the coronavirus epidemic in the Eastern European country.
Precisely in Bucharest, but not only, the morgues are full of victims of Covid and the intensive care units are close to collapse, to the point that many patients are transferred to other European states (Italy has only recently welcomed six ).
The numbers of the pandemic in Romania are frightening especially as regards the victims: the weekly average of Covid deaths per million inhabitants has in fact reached 23.7, compared to an EU average of 3.1.
The daily infections are almost seven thousand, but in one of the latest reports the daily deaths have even reached 400.
Things are not better in neighboring Bulgaria, where there are 22.8 victims per million inhabitants, almost 170 per day looking at the average of the last week.
For experts, the cause of this upsurge is undoubtedly due to the slowness with which the vaccination campaign is continuing in the two countries. Despite the wide availability of doses, in fact, Romania and Bulgaria are in the last places for administrations: only 34.5% of the inhabitants of Romania and only 23% of those of Bulgaria received two vaccinations, against an EU average of 65. ,2%.
But why is there so little vaccination in Romania and Bulgaria? Both due to the slowness of the health system and the poor health situation in many provinces. The problem, however, would also lie in the lack of literacy and the No Vax propaganda of many well-known personalities, both political and ecclesiastical, which often even refers to superstitions or in any case to unscientific theories, which significantly influence the inhabitants, pushing them to be wary of the vaccine. . Just think a bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church was recently investigated with the accusation of having misinformed about Covid.
On the basis of the data of the health authorities of the two states, on the other hand, most of the infected and of the victims are among the unvaccinated. But, as pointed out to the press agencies by Valeriu Gheorghita, coordinator of the vaccination campaign in Romania, it is "difficult to go against the conviction of many elderly people who, when you offer them the vaccine, respond: 'At my age I will live as long as I am allowed' ".
On the other hand, in the containment of infections, the restrictive measures adopted by governments are currently having no effect, if not mild. The Romanian one, for example, introduced a curfew at 10pm two weeks ago and the requirement for vaccination certificates to go to the gym, the cinema or shopping centers. But without an acceleration of the vaccination campaign, the situation continues to get out of control.
(Unioneonline / lf)
