The increase in the number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection will continue in the coming period, and over 92 pct of deaths were recorded in unvaccinated persons, announced, on Tuesday, the the president of Romania's National COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV), military doctor Valeriu Gheorghita.

"Unfortunately, today, we have over 3,900 cases reported of infections with SARS-CoV-2, given that we are speaking of a positive rate of tests of 8.2 pct. In the previous day, we had two times fewer cases with the same positive rate, which makes me believe that, in the coming period, the increase in cases will continue. There is no possibility for a stagnation in the increase of the number of cases. The situation can be explained, firstly, by the fact that the Delta variant has become dominant, including in Romania. Furthermore, one in two Romanians has no sort of protection against the disease, in the sense that they are unvaccinated and have not gone through the disease. From this point of view, even in the large urban environments, where the collective immunization rate, either through disease, or through vaccination, is over 50 pct and even over 60 pct, we are still speaking of 40 pct, which translates in total values into hundreds of thousands of people who have no sort of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection," military doctor Valeriu Gheorghita told a press conference.

He called on to people to respect the preventive measures and to get vaccinated, emphasizing that 80 pct of infections and 92 pct of deaths were recorded among persons not vaccinated.

"The message remains a very clear one - respecting preventive measures: the mask, avoiding crowded areas, hygiene and vaccination reduce the risk of infection and the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death due to the COVID-19 disease. Unfortunately, we see that a larger and larger number of persons end up in intensive care, in a relatively short time, which represents a completely concerning phenomenon. If we look at the cases diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, over 80 pct are cases of unvaccinated persons, and, also, over 92 pct of deaths occurred in unvaccinated persons," Gheorghita also said. AGERPRES (RO - author: Eusebi Manolache, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Simona Iacob)