Romania is the only yellow country on the completely red coronavirus map which counts the numbers of cases every week.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) publishes its color-coded map of the continent every Thursday, with different colors according to the number of Covid-19 cases in the past 14 days.
Colors
The colors vary from green to yellow, red and dark red, depending on the severity of the epidemiological situation.
Spain is also completely dark red this week. Belgium has been showing completely dark red since 4 November.
The situation has also worsened in Italy, where some areas had been in the orange category last week. This week, southern Italy and Sardinia are in the red category while northern Italy is in the deep red category. Malta has also switched from the red to the deep red category.
Red category
Several areas have been lifted from the deep red to the red category including Latvia, western and southern Germany and some regions in eastern Hungary, most of Austria and eastern Poland.
On the mainland, Europe, only Romania still sees most of its territory colored yellow and green, apart from its capital Bucharest which is red.
Overseas territories such as Guadeloupe and Saint Martin, Martinique and Mayotte are also still yellow.
Cases have stayed low this month in Romania, but have risen in the past five days with 1,668 infections on Friday. Romanian healthcare officials expect a surge in Covid-19 cases with up to 25,000 cases a day by February. The Omicron variant is expected to become dominant by mid-January.
Positivity ratio
The ECDC colors a country or region red if the 14-day incidence (the number of new cases per 100,000 inhabitants) exceeds 75 and the positivity ratio is higher than 4%, or if the incidence is above 200, regardless of the positivity ratio.
If a region registers more than 500 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, the map turns dark red.
The epidemiological situation has slightly improved in some countries in Eastern and Central Europe this week.
Omicron strain
However, due to the rapid spread of the virus and the new Omicron strain, most countries remain in the red and deep red category.
The ECDC map does not record deaths, hospitalizations, or vaccinations.
It does not say how many of the cases were caused by the Omicron variant.
Romania to face fifth wave of Covid-19 with ‘up to 25,000 cases’ a day by February
