Establishing new restrictions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic "is beyond the competence and power of the Ministry of Health", minister Alexandru Rafila, said on Tuesday evening, for the private broadcaster Romania TV.
"We are referring to the professional side, which is tied to ensuring the diagnostic, evaluation, treatment and information of the population regularly. We have a daily informative bulletin with many details. Everyone can understand, to see what the evolution is. We are continuing in a constructive way to recommend people when they are in closed spaces, crowded, on the bus and other means of transportation, to try to use their mask, to distance themselves when they can and to wash their hands. I do not believe that these are restrictions, they are just elements of individual safety. (...) This is not about someone opposing, we simply did not extend this state of alert through a Government decision and implicitly all elements that we had at our disposal simply disappeared. We will keep relying on responsibility, information. Maybe we will be more successful, because sometimes measures that can seem coercive are harder to apply then those that invite an individual responsibility," the Minister of Health said.
Asked if reintroducing restrictions in the context of the growing number of cases would be possible, Rafila replied that he is not excluding anything, but removing restrictions, step by step, would have slowed down the transmission of the virus.
"We are now at an infection reproduction rate of around 1 and we will probably go beyond this number, so we are expecting an upward trend. (...) It is important to keep it under control, so that this increase will not cause concern," Rafila said.
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