It is possible that as many as 6 million Romanians have been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, the head of the vaccination campaign, Valeriu Gheorghita, said on Tuesday, far higher than the official figure of just over 1 million.
“It is very likely that two to five times more people were at some point infected with SARS-CoV-2 than the number of diagnosed and reported patients,” said Gheorghita, noting that this factors in the herd immunity that led to a favourable evolution of the pandemic in Romania over the past weeks.
Moreover, since more than 4 million people have already received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccination since the start of the campaign, as many as 8 to 9 million people in Romania could have some degree of immunity, according to the country’s vaccination campaign coordinator.
According to Gheorghita, this “certain degree of herd immunity” is accounting for a good epidemiological situation. The number of COVID-related deaths in Romania passed the 30,000-mark on Tuesday. (Bogdan Neagu | EURACTIV.ro)