Romania to get first Covid-19 vaccines next year, president says

Foto: INQUAM/Octav Ganea

Romania will receive a batch of 10 million Covid-19 vaccines next year via the European Commission, the president said.

The vaccines which will be available from next spring in the best-case scenario will go to medical staff and other high-risk groups in Romania first, Klaus Iohannis said Tuesday.

“We want to be sure that the vaccines will be efficient and safe and respect all international rules,” he said at a news conference.

The Commission is negotiating with pharma companies to purchase hundreds of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines to distribute across the 27 EU member states. It has called on EU governments to draw up national vaccination strategies.

Coronavirus cases have hit new daily highs this week across Europe as many countries battled rapidly increasing Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations.

Romania posted a record high of 7,733 new cases of coronavirus and 120  Covid-19 related deaths on Wednesday.

Despite the surge in cases, the president said he believed that parliamentary elections scheduled for Dec. 6 did not need to be postponed as a result of the health crisis and authorities had the situation under control.

“We can see what’s happening elsewhere in the world,” Mr. Iohannis said. “There are elections in the United States which has been much more badlyhit by the pandemic, unfortunately,” he said.

Neighboring Moldova also held presidential elections on Nov. 1 and will have a runoff on Nov. 14.

“We can’t get stuck on a particular number, but have to see how things develop as a whole and what measures we can take to which allow us to limit the spread of the pandemic and then elections will of course be possible,” he said.

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