The number of deaths from COVID-19 jumped to 400 on Friday in Romania, Europe’s hardest-hit country in the eastern part of the continent by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Strategic Communication Group reported eight deaths Friday morning of people aged between 41 and 84.
They all had underlying health conditions, except for the 41-year-old, a man who returned from Britain on March 27 and was had been in an intensive care unit at the Matei Bals Infectious Disease Hospital since March 30.
Romania like other countries in the eastern part of Europe was protected in the initial stages of the epidemic, but numbers rose after Romanian returned home from western Europe.
Many Romanians work in the worst coronavirus epicentres, such as Italy or Spain.
In the region, only Poland has slightly more cases, but less deaths than Romania, with 314 deaths reported on Thursday/.
On Thursday, authorities reported 491 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, one of the highest since the outbreak began.
The total number of confirmed cases was 7,707 cases on Thursday.
Romanian authorities say the virus will peak in the next two weeks, after Orthodox Easter on Sunday.
The Strategic Communication Group on Wednesday advised people to wear surgical masks and gloves when shopping, to spend as little time as possible in a shop, and to keep a distance from other people.
Some Romanian counties have made masks compulsory in public
