Romanian Authorities Forbid COVID-19 Mass Testing in Bucharest. Why?

Bucharest is the Romanian capital city, with an official population of around 2 million inhabitants, but with up to 3 million inhabitants if we count those who are not officially established here, such as students or others. For such a numerous population to have only 2,700 cases of COVID-19 infected patients, meaning 1.44 to a thousand, it is rather strange.

This is why the General Mayor of Bucharest, Mrs. Gabriela Firea, requested a mass testing. This was not only denied by the Romanian Government, but also it was forbidden by the Minister of Health when the City Hall medical representatives started to conduct it.

Gabriela Firea accused the Romanian authorities of forbidding the mass testing on political grounds, as she is a social-democrat, while the Romanian Government is liberal. Besides, she told the journalists that the second reason for this behavior of the central authorities is the fact they want to hide the real situation in Bucharest for fear the mass testing will show that the level of the contagiousness is much lower than the numbers communicated.

Recently, European authorities from Italy and Spain showed that the coronavirus existed in communities long before anybody was alerted. People lived with COVID-19 in Italy even since December 2019, while the ”first” officially reported case was registered in February.

Thus, there are medical opinions in Romania who claim that the coronavirus existed here long before the first case was recorded at the end of February, especially when taking into consideration the Chinese community from Bucharest.

This is why, a mass testing will show that Bucharest population is not contagious, while some having already developed immunity to COVID-19 after being infected during the last winter. It is not the first time when the Romanian Government is accused of hiding the real situation in the country. Last week, the leader of the Romanian Opposition launched bitter accusations to the Government for hiding the real numbers regarding the situation and for manipulating numbers for their own political interest.

Also, recently, 300 doctors and nurses from one of the biggest hospitals in Bucharest signed a petition to be allowed to save patients’ lives again after their hospital had been transformed into a COVID-19 medical support unit.