March 15, One Year since the First Lockdown in Romania

One year ago, on March 15, 2020, Romanian authorities decided to enforce lockdown measures in the country. On that particular day there were exactly 8 (eight) new cases of Coronavirus infected persons identified. If we had 8 cases a day now, specialists will consider the pandemic is over, no doubt about it!

Despite the lockdown, one month later the daily number of cases exceeded 500. The efficiency of the lockdown was far from what people expected, especially that they were forced to spend their Easter Holiday far from the dear ones and far from the church.

The situation escaladed to a point when, in November 2020 the daily number of cases exceeded 10,000 on a regular basis. All these despite the lockdown and tough restrictions applied each month in the country.

In March 2021, one year later, the authorities are preparing for a new possible lockdown. The history repeats, as the potential lockdown is prepared exactly during the Easter Holiday, and the estimation takes into account the fact that, according to some specialists, the third wave of Coronavirus in Romania could get to more than 10,000 infected cases a day in the first weeks of April.

Have we learnt anything?

Romanian political class should be ashamed of the way the population was treated in the first months after enforcing the lockdown: police abuses, officers who beat citizens on the streets or who fined for misdemeanors with more than 4,000 EUR, politicians who didn’t obey the rules they imposed and lots of other examples alike.

Also, let’s not forget about the unfulfilled promises of the Government to help the businesses in need or to help the hospitality industry, tens of thousands of entrepreneurs already filling for bankruptcy or preparing to do so.

The only thing which can save the situation is the good vaccination rate in Romania, the country occupying on the top positions in Europe at one time by the percentage of people immunized with the second dose of vaccine. It doesn’t occupy a top position any longer, but it’s still there, trying to cope with the pandemic by immunizing 10.5 million adults until September.

Have the politicians learnt anything from this experience? Have the people understood what happened to them? Are the business owners who survived the economic crisis more prepared to protect their businesses now than they were a year ago? Are we all better than before or more affected?

We believe that the pandemic still takes its toll and still affect all of us. And we also believe that now it is the moment to overcome all the fears and all the current difficulties and to postpone the judgement for later. We’ll blame the culprits and we’ll judge the corrupted after all this is over. Now it’s important to get out of this pandemic as soon as possible and to start living the life we know before, with all the freedom, all the hope and all the beautiful moments it offers.