Prime Minister Ludovic Orban said on Friday that Romania took extremely serious measures from minute one to combat the epidemic with the new coronavirus, while acknowledging that our country was not prepared initially and had a limited diagnostic capacity.

"On 25 or 26 February, in Romania there was one case, in Spain there were two cases, in France there were a few cases. Look at the number of cases in Romania, a little over a thousand. If we take into account those who are cured, we have below a thousand patients suffering from COVID-19, while in the other countries the number of infected persons is in the order of tens of thousands. Romania, from minute, took extremely serious measures. After the Chinese New Year, when thousands of Chinese citizens came to Romania, there was no outbreak. There was also something specific in relation to that did not occur in other European countries. Over two hundred thousand Romanians came back to Romania most of them from countries seriously affected by the epidemic. If we had not taken severe quarantine measures, either institutionalized quarantine or isolation at home, the spread would have been very high in Romania," Orban said after a meeting with the new Health minister Nelu Tataru, at the Health Ministry.

He added that Romania has taken measures that have yielded results, such as closing schools and protecting the elderly.

"We introduced the obligation of conduction prompt epidemiological investigations around each diagnosed case, a measure that has limited the spread of the virus, we took almost all measures before other countries that were more affected by the coronavirus epidemic," said Orban.

Referring to coronavirus cases, the prime minister showed that Romania was not prepared initially, and the diagnostic capacity was limited.

"I do not mean the casuistry. We have a relatively small number of deaths, below the mortality level in other countries. Usually, those who died had other underlying conditions, something that occurred in other countries, as well. Romania was not ready. We started with a Real Time PCR, we gradually expanded. I think at the beginning of next week we will have the capacity to increase the number of tests to 2,000," said Orban.

He called on the Minister of Health to urgently distribute the quantities of test kits purchased from South Korea, in order to increase the testing capacity.

Premier Orban reiterated that people cannot be tested at random.

"We cannot establish randomly the people to be diagnosed. The stories that circulate that we are beginning to select 10 thousand people to test are stories. There is a procedure, there are prioritization criteria, there is an order of priorities regarding the testing of persons, which is determined based on the way the cases evolve and our diagnostic capacity," the prime minister further said. AGERPRES (RO - author: Alina Novaceanu, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author/editor: Simona Iacob)