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The COVID-19 pandemic was doubled, in the past year, by a misinformation epidemic, said, on Monday, President Klaus Iohannis, at the opening of the school year at the Carola Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy.
"Unfortunately, in the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic was doubled by a misinformation epidemic, by which years and years of medical training wound up being contested on the basis of opinions without scientific backing or even on the basis of deliberate misinformation circulating on social media. This fake news epidemic doubted the efficiency of the vaccines obtained by methods perfected over the years. All these make your already hard work more difficult than it should be," said the head of state.
He concluded that "the vaccine, for example, is the most efficient way to limit the effects of the pandemic and that fact remains true, regardless of the opinions of some or others."
"We must make more efforts to help people be aware that medical and pharmaceutic research is based on higher scientific rigor than other domains, on a meticulous verification of data and on a constant monitoring of patients. This means that certain obvious facts have no reason to be challenged," said the head of state.
Iohannis recalled that "one of the major objectives of the Educated Romania project is the significant reduction of functional and scientific illiteracy."
"We propose to increase the capacity of graduates of mandatory education to inform themselves from credible sources and to discern between verified information and speculations," said Iohannis and emphasized that "understanding and assimilating recent scientific innovation are obligatory conditions so that Romania can rapidly progress and massively reduce the gaps to highly-developed states."
"It's necessary to integrate innovation in all aspects of our lives, in society, in economy and, obviously, in education," said the President.
Furthermore, he said that prevention must start early, since the first years of school. "That's why I would like to see more and more professionals and more career paths in the sphere of school medicine," said Iohannis.
