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Iohannis: vaccination campaign is a national security matter
President Klaus Iohannis announced on Friday that he would hold a meeting with the defence, health and interior ministers on Monday to clarify issues related to the COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a matter of national security.
"In the matter of vaccination, in my opinion, the vaccination campaign must be a success and as such, in my opinion, the vaccination campaign is a matter of national security. That is why I have convened a meeting for Monday where besides me there will be the defence minister, the interior minister and the health minister to clarify all aspects of the vaccination campaign as a matter of national security," the head of state told a news briefing at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace.
He added that up-to-date data on COVID-19 cases indicate that there are grounds for moderate optimism, calling for the measures imposed by the authorities being religiously followed.
"We see that the number of cases has not increased from the previous days and I think that confirms what I have been saying for a few days now that, in terms of the number of new cases, we are on a plateau. Also, today we were able to notice that the number of people cured is approximately equal to the number of people who, unfortunately, have tested positive for the disease. Let's see if this trend is confirmed in the coming days. But we can already say that the measures that were taken by the authorities were the correct measures, they were the appropriate measures. But (...) things will look even better if we are patient and if we continue to observe these measures religiously. If we do it, then in a week or two, we will be able to have results that show a clear improvement of the situation," said Iohannis.
According to him, the COVID-19 epidemic can be kept under control by quarantining the localities, appreciating that it is a measure that has proven its effectiveness.
"The quarantine is essentially a complex measure to restrict traffic, which allows control of the spread of the pandemic in a locality. We have already had quarantine measures taken for several weeks and the first results have begun to appear. Where quarantine measures have been taken that week-to-week uncontrolled case rise has ceased in all situations, and restrictions will be maintained until the number of infections begins to decrease, but not just in one day, but on several consecutive days, in such a way that it can be considered that the infection no longer spreads at an accelerated rate. It is a measure that has proven to be effective, but the problem is not the measure in itself, but the economic effect, because the restrictions have a measurable negative economic effect. That is why experts recommend, after a careful, very detailed analysis, where quarantine is required and where it is not required. Unfortunately, there are quite a few localities that are now proposed for quarantine, but I think that everywhere, in a relatively short time, usually two or three weeks, things go back to normal, so the pandemic does not go away, but we go back to figures that correspond to the national average and in this way we can keep the epidemic under control, by acting locally and regionally to that end," said President Iohannis, on Sunday, after visiting the Fundeni Clinical Institute.
The clarifications came after Iohannis was asked if a quarantine of the Capital is being considered in the coming weeks.
The head of state also spoke about the case definition.
"The case definition or the suspicious case is updated quite often by the INSP [the National Public Health Institute] and I think we have the best specialists there and I am convinced that, the way they describe the cases is the correct one," Iohannis said.