HealthMin: Romania sees 5th Covid wave, Omicron community spread level expected in two weeks

Health Minister Alexandru Rafila said that that the 5th wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is already underway in Romania, adding that although the transmission of the Omicron variant is just sporadic at this moment, in one or two weeks it could develop to community spread level, Agerpres reports.

"From a few hundred cases a day, we are now talking about a few thousand cases a day, and even if the situation appears to have stabilized in the last four or five days, this doesn't mean that things have returned to normal. We are on one of the fastest growing trends in Europe and I don't mean just the European Union, we are on the second or third spot, so we have no reason to relax yet, on the contrary, we need to be extremely careful. Hopes are that these new cases don't get the health system in a tough situation," Rafila told private TV broadcaster Antena 3 on Sunday.

He said he has developed a very clear patient circuit and that the country's testing capacity will get a boost by a 10-fold increase in the number of testing locations.

The Minister also described two of the typical symptoms of the Omicron infection - "sore throat, yet less intense, rather like an itch, and profuse sweating during the night". Other symptoms include asthenia, muscle aches, myalgia, fever, sometimes a digestive syndrome, added Minister Rafila.

He said that testing is spearheading the plan for fending off the anticipated Omicron wave.

"One more thing, from the end of this month we will have innovative antivirals available that will be administered only to patients with moderate forms and risk factor. We have estimated (...) around one million cases and we are trying to get antiviral treatment for about 250,000 of these," he said.

The Health Minister explained that this treatment will be offered to outpatients and should be administered in the first days of illness.