Romania faced a new negative record in the number of new coronavirus cases registered in a single day: From Tuesday to Wednesday, 4,848 new cases were reported, the Group for Strategic Communication (GCS) announced. Up until Wednesday, October 21, there were 191,102 COVID-19 cases in the country, and of those, 137,835 were declared fully recovered. At the moment, 10,250 infected people are being treated in a hospital, 766 in intensive care units.
“In the interval 20.10. 2020 (10 o’clock) and 21.10. 2020 (10 o’clock), 69 (44 men and 25 women) deaths were registered for patients infected with coronavirus and being treated in hospitals in Fehér (Alba), Arad, Bákó (Bacău), Beszterce-Naszód (Bistrița-Năsăud), Brăila, Krassó-Szörény (Caraș-Severin), Kolozs (Cluj), Constanța, Dâmbovița, Dolj, Gorj, Hargita (Harghita), Hunyad (Hunedoara), Iași, Máramaros (Maramureș), Olt, Prahova, Szeben (Sibiu), Suceava, Teleorman, Temes (Timiș), Ilfov and Bucharest,” GCS announced. According to the group, 10 deaths were registered in the age group of 50-59 years, 18 each in the 60-69 and 70-79 groups, and 23 among those older than 80. According to GCS, 65 of those who died from Tuesday to Wednesday had shown comorbidities, but four did not.
Nearly 500 deaths related to coronavirus were reported last week, the latest weekly report from the National Institute of Public Health reveals. Over the last week, there were also days when, within 24 hours, more people died of coronavirus than those who died of the flu during last year’s entire flu season.
Hungarian news portal in Romania Székelyhon.ro compared the latest coronavirus data to the flu data from the 2019/2020 flu season. According to the portal, the National Institute of Public Health did not provide any data by counties in its latest weekly report on the coronavirus epidemic, nor did it justify the narrow aggregation. However, the national summary published by the institute revealed that 25,502 new coronavirus cases were registered between October 12 and 18, and 464 death related to the new virus were also reported.
“For pandemic deniers, conspiracy theorists and people comparing coronavirus to the cold, it could be interesting that there have been more COVID-19 deaths in a single day in the country in the past week than all flu-related deaths in the 2019/2020 flu season combined. On October 16, 75 coronavirus patients died in Romania, while 73 people died of the flu nationwide in the flu season from October 2019 to May 2020. Comparing the number of confirmed infections, the huge difference between the spread of the two pathogens is also evident: On October 16, 4,026 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the country, more than double the number of 1,929 influenza cases confirmed in the last flu season,” the news portal wrote.
According to the National Institute of Public Health, 33.7 percent of the new cases from last week were reported in Bucharest and in Iași, Kolozs (Cluj), Temes (Timiș) and Dolj Counties. The greatest number of deaths related to coronavirus – 29.6 percent – were registered in Bucharest and in Prahova, Vaslui, Krassó-Szörény (Caraș-Severin) and Dâmbovița Counties. The report also shows that only 1 out of 32 infected people is a member of medical personnel and that 95.6 percent of those lost to coronavirus also had other illnesses. The biggest risk factors for the severity of the virus are cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, nervous system issues, kidney or lung diseases and cancer. Eighty-eight percent of COVID-19 victims are over the age of 60, and 60 percent are male.
Title image: More people died in a single day of coronavirus than from the flu in last year’s entire flu season. Photo: Guliver/Gettyimages
