There is a quite serious COVID-19 episode in Romania, but cases are mild (official)

Doctor Adrian Marinescu, manager of the Matei Bals Institute, told AGERPRES on Tuesday that although the current episode of COVID-19 infections in Romania is a "quite serious" one, there is nothing to back that the aggressiveness of the virus has increased, as most reported cases are mild.

"After the end of the pandemic in 2022 we moved on to the stage of coexistence with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, coexistence that is not always harmonious. We have had such episodes before, we have an episode, I would say, quite serious now. Fortunately, there is nothing to say that there is an increased aggressiveness, that we expect to have an important percentage of cases, as was the case with the Delta wave. Most of them are mild cases," Marinescu told AGERPRES.

He said that there is a pressure that has increased on infectious disease hospitals and that a solution would be for each hospital to see patients infected with this virus.

"There is a pressure that has increased quite a lot on infectious disease hospitals, first of all. There are people with chronic diseases, those who are of a certain age, let's say over 65 years old, there are small children, who may need monitoring, namely to be hospitalised and you need places. Needing places, you have to make some circuits and it is quite complicated, for example the Matei Bals Institute over the last weeks had to find these places for children and also for adults, dedicated ward. One solution, from my point of view, is for each hospital to see patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection."

According to him, the number of cases of infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could increase again with the start of the new school year, but not exponentially, as it is a coexistence, which in most cases involves mild forms.

"It is possible that it [the number of cases] will increase, but I don't expect it to be something exponential. I believe that, at some point, things will be extinguished and in any case it is a coexistence that involves easy forms in most cases. That is, most of them actually have a simple perception of a viral infection, like a virus, which resolves even without targeted treatment. We can talk about symptomatic, anti-inflammatory."

Marinescu added that amid the beginning of the new school year, hygiene rules are very important, and if a child is sick, he pr she should not be sent into the community.

"All the more so as school starts and we should know that hygiene things are important, when we have symptoms it is good not to send the child to school because he or she can pass the illness on," the doctor said .

The National Public Health Institute (INSP) has reported that between August 25 and 31, 3,982 new cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 were recorded in Romania, up 3.4% from the previous week.

According to INSP, 893 of the new cases were in reinfected patients who tested positive more than 90 days after the first infection.

Between August 25 and 30 , nine deaths were reported in people infected with COVID-19, two men and seven women, all with associated comorbidities.

In the same week, 382 RT-PCR tests and 27,318 rapid antigen tests were performed. The positivity rate was14.4%.