Romania is already in the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, health minister Alexandru Rafila said on Friday, January 7. Moreover, the Omicron variant has begun spreading through community transmission.

“Practically, we’re already in the fifth wave of the pandemic," Rafila said, according to Digi24. “From December 20 to January 5, there has been a growing trend in the number of cases. We already had about 3,000 cases on January 5, and this has changed quite a bit lately. The positivity rate rose from less than 2 percent to more than 6 percent on January 5. We are on an upward trend,” he added.

According to minister Rafila, almost a fifth of the cases were in the Bucharest-Ilfov region. At the same time, Cluj, Timis and Iasi are the most affected counties.

“We’re now seeing community transmission in Romania. For the time being, it is sporadic, but in the coming days, we may see a sustained community transmission with this new strain,” Alexandru Rafila also said.

Romania’s daily COVID-19 case count started rising rapidly over the past few days, after several weeks of decrease. On January 3, for example, health officials reported 1,756 new cases of infection in 24 hours. The number increased quite fast in the coming days, reaching 6,018 on January 6 and 5,922 on January 7.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/George Calin)