A Romanian public health chief has warned that if a surge in Covid-19 cases continues, hospitals will be overwhelmed.
Simona Pârvu, head of the National Public Health Institute, told Radio Free Europe on Tuesday that of Covid-19 figures continued to rise in the next two-three weeks, Romania “would be in the situation Italy was.” with intensive care units buckling under the pressure.
North Italy was the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this year. In March, at the peak of the pandemic, Italian hospitals had to transform other wards into ICUs and doctors were forced to elect which patients to place on ventilators.
Romania has seen a spike in cases in the last month, with more than 1,000 new daily cases for the past two weeks. The number of infections fell for a few days, only to rise significantly on Tuesday when 1,232 new infections were confirmed, a massive 400 cases more than Monday.
Romania reported 48 deaths on Tuesday, the highest number of fatalities in a single day.
The number of patients being treated in intensive care units has risen gradually and steadily. On Tuesday, there were 436 Covid-19 patients in ICU.
Parvu told Radio Free Europe that “restrictive measures, quarantining areas where there are outbreaks and making masks compulsory in outdoor areas were only adopted in the last week.’’
“Maybe it would have been better if we implemented the measures earlier, but even now, it isn’t too late,” she said.
“In the context where we have 1,000 to 1,100 cases as a daily average and 2 to 5% of those reach intensive care, we can predict that between 20-50 patients a day will be moved to ICU,” she said,
“This means overcrowding in ICUs, and taking into account Covid-19 patients stay a long time in intensive care, between 10 and 20 days.
“We have a finite number of beds and they will be filled. That is our big problem,” she said.
She said Romania could reach a point where its hospitals couldn’t cope “in 2-3 weeks if measures aren’t applied.”
“If the general public understands we have to adopt social distancing measures and wear masks, we hope we won’t get in a situation like Italy and the number of cases will begin to fall.”
