Romania is going through dark clouds with a double crisis, both health and political. The same day that it transpired that the country has run out of hospital places available in the intensive care units (ICU) for the general citizenry – one of the consequences of the dire vaccination rates against the coronavirus in the country, of just one 28% of the population-, culminated a motion of censure that has brought down the Government , thus triggering political instability. Social discontent over the high prices of electricity and gas has also contributed to this.
The health alarm in Romania was fully activated this Tuesday, when it was announced that the country’s hospital resources are on the brink of collapse. 1,480 patients occupy the beds in the ICUs available in the country for general citizenship, with only another 130 places being reserved for severe coronavirus cases. These hospital collapse figures are what really mark the emergency situations in the countries and go back to those suffered by the countries most affected by the pandemic when the first wave arrived, in the spring of last year 2020.
While the restrictive measures are being withdrawn -at different rates depending on which states- to approach a certain normality in life, the data on the incidence of the virus are evolving differently in each territory and in a direct proportion to the data vaccination in the population. Romania is the second country where fewer citizens have decided to inoculate vaccines so far, only 28.1% of the population already has the full schedule. Skepticism regarding coronavirus vaccines is common currency among both the population and the political class in Romania, and the data illustrates the consequence.
The fall of the government in the midst of a storm
But the government has faced its own domestic problems of a political nature in recent days: a vote of no confidence that culminated on Tuesday with the opposition’s victory by an overwhelming majority. The deposed prime minister, Florin Citu, a liberal, had barely been in office since last December.
The country’s president, Klaus Iohannis, of the center-right, will now open consultations to form a new government while the current one continues to act in office, but without a clear horizon, while the motion of no confidence went ahead thanks to a heterodox alliance with an unlikely future that included the former center-right party partner of the current government, the Socialists and the extreme right. Hence, there is a high probability that the most likely horizon will be a new election, which is the favorite choice of the socialists, leaders in the polls today.
Romania is also one of the countries most affected by the rise in electricity and gas prices in Europe in recent months. This new crisis, added to the erratic pandemic management in recent times, has ended up digging the government’s grave and plunging Romania into maximum instability.
