More than 4,000 people were diagnosed with coronavirus from Saturday to Sunday, and a record number of patients are being treated in intensive care, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS) announced on Sunday afternoon.
Over the weekend, 4,267 people tested positive for coronavirus, bringing the total number of registered cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 897,115; out of those, 806,200 have been declared fully cured, the GCS said. Since the last report on Saturday afternoon, the most new cases have been registered in Bucharest (1,755 new cases) and the following counties: Temesvár/Timișoara (294), Ilfov (294), Kolozs/Cluj (262), Konstanca/Constanța (214) and Iaşi (177). The lowest numbers of cases were recorded in Hargita/Harghita (20), Vrancea (25), Ialomiţa (30), Szatmár/Satu Mare (31) and Krassó-Szörény/Caraș-Severin (33) counties.
From Saturday to Sunday, 76 more people – 42 men and 34 women – were lost to the virus, while a total of 22,208 deaths related to COVID-19 have so far been registered since the outbreak of the pandemic. Two of the latest fatalities were aged between 40 and 49, nine between 50 and 59, 19 between the age of 60 and 69, and 30 between the age of 70 and 79; 16 patients lost were over 80 years old. Of those that died over the weekend related to coronavirus, 71 had other diseases, four did not have any underlying conditions, and one had no report as to other possible illnesses.
Currently, 11,897 patients are being treated in the hospital; of those 1,334 – a record number – are in intensive care units. The latest record for people in ICU was registered on Saturday, when the number reached 1,324. In addition, 62,484 coronavirus patients are in home isolation, and 15,467 are in institutionalized isolation, while a total of 54,352 are in home quarantine and 116 in institutionalized quarantine.
Over the weekend, 15,073 PCR-RT tests were performed (8,736 based on case definition and medical protocol and 6,337 on request), and 5,319 rapid test results were processed. In addition to the confirmed new cases, 768 people tested positive for the coronavirus again. In Romania, since the outbreak of the pandemic, the results of 6,486,880 RT-PCR tests have been analyzed and 501,385 antigen rapid tests have been performed.
In Ilfov County, the number of people infected with coronavirus per 1,000 inhabitants registered in the last 14 days reached 6.66 on Sunday, the highest rate in the country, the GCS announced. In addition, Bucharest – where cases grew from 4.85 to 5.33 from Saturday to Sunday – as well as Temes/Timiș (6.01), Brassó/Brașov (4.49), Hunyad/ Hunedoara (4.25), Kolozs/Cluj (4.22), Konstanca/Constanța (3.49), Fehér/Alba (3.40) and Szilágy/Sălaj (3.23) counties are still considered red zones. A county is qualified as a red one if the number of infected people per 1,000 registered in the last 14 days exceeds three.
Another 27 counties are yellow – where the infection rate is 1.5-3/1,000 inhabitants. Among these, Arad (2.95), Giurgiu (2.87), Szeben/Sibiu (2.83), Bihar/Bihor (2.56) and Vâlcea (2.54) have the highest infection rate. Only six counties qualify as a green zone, with the lowest infection rate registered in Suceava (1.04), Hargita/Harghita (1.06) and Buzău (1.13) counties.
More than 700,000 people have received the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and only 1,000 of these became infected with the virus, Valeriu Gheorghiță, the coordinator of the national vaccination campaign said Saturday evening on Digi24.
Gheorghiță stated that based on their surveys, a very small proportion of those already vaccinated get sick, although they do not spread the virus as much as those who have not been vaccinated.
According to their data, the rate of infection is very low among the already immunized population and most of them are asymptomatic. Valeriu Gheorghiță knows of only one immunized patient in Ilfov County who had severe symptoms; this patient is currently under investigation, and they are trying to find out which variant of the coronavirus the patient was infected with.
From Saturday to Sunday, 41,657 people received the first dose, while 2,760 became fully vaccinated with their second dose, bringing the total number of people vaccinated with one dose to 970,696, and the number of people who have received both doses to 775,408.
Title image: 4,267 people tested positive for coronavirus from Saturday to Sunday. Photo: Guliver/Gettyimages
