Rafila: Number of tests has started to drop quite a lot

The Social Democratic Party (PSD) candidate for the Chamber of Deputies, Professor Dr. Alexandru Rafila, member of the WHO Executive Committee, said on Tuesday in southern Ploiesti that the number of tests has started to drop "quite a lot", and the Public Health Directorates (DSP) are not "encouraged" to investigate all outbreaks.

"A strange phenomenon has happened: suddenly the number of tests has stabilized, so to speak. We ended up testing as much when we had 10,000 infected patients every day as when we had 5,000 patients. Moreover, today we found out with surprise that the number of tests has started to drop quite a lot, it decreased by 20% in one day, today we had almost 8,000 cases, we only had 30,000 tests, which is abnormal, because in fact there is a blockage somewhere. (...) I think the blockage is somewhere in the area of public health directorates, which are not encouraged to investigate all outbreaks, to identify contacts, to see if there is the slightest symptomatology that should lead to a test being carried out, as all the countries that have come to really control the pandemic have done this: the more the number of cases has increased, the more testing has gone up and this has allowed the isolation of the infected and the cessation of the transmission. Stopping the transmission only through non-medical measures (...) is not a solution, because it often affects the foundations of society. Of course, in a major crisis you take extreme measures, no one says that this cannot be done, but we must be rational and develop those areas of public health that can lead to pandemic control," Rafila told a press conference.

"There is a government decision under debate on the website of the Ministry of Health to increase the income of medical staff leaving out the colleagues with the INSP [the National Institute of Public Health] and public health directorates. Beyond the fact that this is unacceptable, if you need an army to act against an infection, such as this one, you should not discriminate among people who are involved in managing this pandemic and it seems to me that this should be reconsidered at the Government level, and colleagues working in the health directorates, in the INSP, should be encouraged, including by providing these material incentives. Just as with other medical staff," Rafila added.