BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania will shorten the isolation and quarantine periods for COVID-19 positive people, their direct contacts and untested travellers from high-risk countries to varying lengths depending on whether they are vaccinated, health officials said on Friday.
Romania is the European Union’s second-least vaccinated state, with roughly 40% of the population fully inoculated amid distrust in state institutions and poor vaccine education.
Omicron is expected to become the dominant variant in the country around mid-January, with a peak of over 25,000 daily infections and a hospitalisation rate of up to 20%, deputy health minister Adriana Pistol told reporters.
The number of daily COVID-19 infections has tripled over the last week, with 5,922 cases confirmed on Friday.
For direct contacts of COVID-19 positive people and travellers arriving from high-risk countries, quarantine will last five days from 14 currently for people who are vaccinated or have already been infected, and 10 days for the unvaccinated, according to a decision approved on Friday.
The health ministry will approve a separate decree mandating that COVID-19 positive people will isolate for seven days if they are vaccinated and for 10 days if they are not, Pistol said.
The shorter isolation period is appropriate because of faster incubation of the new variant, officials said.
As of Saturday, wearing facial masks becomes mandatory in both outdoor and indoor public spaces, and officials have banned the use of cloth face coverings, saying surgical or FFP grade respirator masks offered better protection.
At the height of the fourth wave in late October and November, Romania topped global lists of new coronavirus deaths per million. The pandemic has killed 58,971 people in the country of 20 million so far.
The ruling coalition government is still negotiating whether to send a new bill mandating a COVID-19 health pass.
(Reporting by Luiza Ilie; Editing by Alison Williams)
