Coronavirus: Romania to quarantine those arriving from impacted Italian cities
People arriving from the Italian localities under quarantine will be placed under quarantine in Romania for two weeks, in specially set up locations, Horaţiu Moldovan, a state secretary with the Health Ministry announced, News.ro reported.
The Italian localities in question are Maleo, Terranova dei Passerini, Codogno, San Fiorano, Somaglia, Fombio, Casalpusterlengo, Castiglione d'Adda, Betonico and Castelgerundo.
“The list was agreed by the Health Ministry and the Interior Affairs Ministry and will be distributed at border checkpoints,” Moldovan said.
Those arriving from the wider regions of Lombardia and Veneto will be placed under isolation at home.
Estimates show over 1 million Romanians live in Italy.
The passengers arriving on the Henri Coandă Airport, Bucharest’s main one, from the Italian areas impacted by the coronavirus, will enter the country through the gateway meant for charter flights, the Bucharest National Airports Company (CNAB) announced on Sunday, February 23.
The measure applies to those arriving from Milano, Bergamo, Treviso and Torino.
Upon entering the country, they will be asked to fill in a short questionnaire and they will be assisted by staff of the Emergency Situations Department.
On February 23, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said that none of the country’s diplomatic missions or consular offices in Italy had been notified about a coronavirus case among Romanian citizens in Italy.
Also on February 23, 50 pupils of the Regina Maria Arts High School in Alba Iulia, a city in central Romania, returned to the country from Venice, a city where the famed carnival was cut short to control the outbreak of the coronavirus. They returned to the country earlier than planned and will stay under isolation, at home, for two weeks, prime minister Ludovic Orban announced.
Meanwhile, a woman returning from Italy who was in contact with a person that showed signs of the coronavirus infection, was transferred during the night of February 23 to February 24 at a camp in Arbănaşi, in Buzău county. Local authorities decided that the locality should be used for the isolation of those under suspicion of being infected with the coronavirus. The 52-year-old woman showed no signs of illness and she underwent various tests that will be sent at the Matei Balş Institute for Infectious Diseases in Bucharest.
Another three people who arrived from Maleo, an Italian locality now under quarantine, in the same minibus that brought the woman to Romania, will be placed in a quarantine center in Galaţi county.
At the same time, the western Romania county of Arad, at the border with Hungary, announced it would ask all citizens transiting the border in the county to fill in a questionnaire drafted by the Public Health Department of the county. Those filling it need to declare their points of departure and arrival.
The county authorities also announced that they identified several spaces that could serve as quarantine centers and that access of the visitors to the Arad County Emergency Hospital will be restricted.
Also in the county, the Vasile Goldiş University of Arad requested an approval from the Education Ministry to suspend courses for two weeks.
Raed Arafat, the head of the Emergency Situations Department, said that the likelihood of not having the coronavirus in Romania is low. “We need to be honest, the likelihood is very low. We cannot say that there will be no case. I think that, bit by bit, there will be cases in all EU countries, not just Romania; it is only a matter of time of when it will emerge in one country or another,” he said.
editor@romania-insider.com
