BUCHAREST, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Romania reported a record 2,158 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the highest single-day increase so far in the eastern European country, bringing the nation's total to 127,572.
Meanwhile, the capital city of Bucharest announced that the dedicated beds for coronavirus had been fully occupied, and new patients would be sent to hospitals in other cities.
Another 33 people, 21 men and 12 women infected with the novel coronavirus, died in the last 24 hours, with the death toll reaching 4,825, according to the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), the official COVID-19 communication task force.
According to GCS, 7,496 people with COVID-19 are hospitalized in specialist healthcare facilities, while there are 550 patients in intensive care. A total of 102,476 patients have recovered from the disease so far.
The epidemic began to rebound and intensified in Romania in mid-June. Statistics showed that the total number of new confirmed cases in September reached 40,032, in June there were 7,713, and in July and August, 23,916 and 36,654, respectively.
According to Agerpres news agency, the national news agency of Romania, Marcel Ciolacu, leader of the Social Democratic Party, decided to take the COVID-19 test and self-isolate until the results are out, together with the secretary-general of the same political party, Paul Stanescu, as they had met with three leaders of a local party branch in Salaj County who have been confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus.
As for the reopening of primary and secondary schools, the number of schools included in the red zone has increased from 263 to 581 in two weeks. The country divided the schools into three types: green, yellow and red, according to the severity of the epidemic situation where the school is located. In schools located in the red zone, students can only stay at home and take online classes.
As the world is in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries across the globe -- including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the U.S. -- are racing to find a vaccine. According to the website of the World Health Organization (WHO), as of Sept. 30, there were 192 COVID-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 41 of them were in clinical trials. Enditem
