Health Minister Alexandru Rafila told a news conference on Monday that Romania's COVID-19 weekly caseload increased by almost 15,000 in the July 4-10 week.

"In the previous week, almost 15,000 cases of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 were reported and 2,717 of them, almost 20% are cases of reinfections. As many 1,410 people are currently hospitalised at specialist healthcare facilities, which is 5.84% of the number of beds allocated according to the resilience plan. Last week, there were about 1,000 people hospitalised, including 86 in ICU. Of the persons in intensive care, 68 out of a total of 86 are unvaccinated against COVID-19. The proportion ICU beds occupied is 4.66%," said Rafila.

According to him, July 4-10, there were 33 COVID-19 deaths, 22 in men and 11 in women.

The minister said that in the last three weeks there was a weekly doubling in the caseload.

"Number of ICU beds 1,847, occupied 86. We do not have any children admitted to the intensive care units. Of the beds allocated to children at national level, 225 are occupied. Basically, in the last three weeks we have had a weekly doubling of the number of cases, from almost 4,000 to 7,700 last week and now 14,943. It is an expected trend according to the National Public Institute (INSP) forecasts. Our opinion is that this increase will last almost four-five weeks until mid-August, after which the number of cases will stabilise and we will see when it starts to decrease," said Rafila.

He said the number of deaths had also risen from 16 to 33.

According to the minister, the results of 12% of the tests performed were positive, with the Omicron strain being dominant.

"We will probably reach quite important waves of positivity, but do not correlate these values with the severity of the cases. (...) The Omicron strain is dominant and the first BA5 strains that are responsible for accelerating the pandemic internationally have already been sequenced," said Rafila.

He added that the Ministry of Health, together with the national Healthcare Insurance (CNAS) have to come up with how to fund the COVID-19 testing and treatment facilities at the weekend.

"The steps to be taken by any person who is symptomatic is get tested at the family physicians' offices or request an ambulance. A positive result triggers first of all isolation at home and seeing the family physician when symptoms are more obvious at the outpatient clinics. More severe cases in patients with comorbidities require hospitalisation. We are now trying in a very short time, together with CNAS, to find how to fund this activity at the weekend for the testing and treatment clinics. Such clinics have to operate at the weekend as well to provide medical services. (...) Pandemic management entails testing clinics that are mainly at family physicians' offices, but there is also testing at pharmacies," said Rafila.

He added that there are 4,320 places in Romania for testing.

At the same time, there are 169 testing clinics currently operational, but they are not much used.

"Vaccination is performed by 4,000 family physicians. We are further assessing the availability of antivirals and rebalance stockpiles of antivirals as they are used between hospitals and testing clinics. (...) I have talked to the ambulance services. I talked to the Bucharest-Ilfov service, because Bucharest has to deal with a third of the testing applications. There were not many requests to the ambulance. (...) As soon as we have requests, we can put into operation those sampling centers that send samples for PCR testing along with other samples that can be taken by colleagues from the ambulance services," the minister said. AGERPRES (RO - author: Roberto Stan, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)