Romania's coronavirus cases surpass 1m, death toll tops 25,000

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Romania surpassed one million on Saturday, reaching 1,002,865 after 4,310 fresh infections, the latest official data showed on Saturday, reported Xinhua.

The official report also brings the total fatalities associated with the virus to 25,006, including 139 deaths over the last 24 hours.

At the moment, there are around 75,620 active cases in the eastern European country. Of the 13,337 people being treated in hospital, 1,492 are in intensive care units, according to the data released by the Strategic Communication Group, Romania's official COVID-19 communication task force.

A total of 902,239 people have so far recovered from COVID-19.

The pandemic began to pick up in March in the country. Since the beginning of this month, an average of 5,006 people have been diagnosed with the virus every day, far more than the average daily levels of 2,374 and 3,812 recorded in the same period in February and March, respectively.

Meanwhile, the number of inpatients and the critically ill has increased significantly. Although the average number of daily cases this year has never reached the high level of 7,800 in November last year, hospitalized cases and severe cases are much more than during that time, putting great pressure on the medical system in some large cities, including the capital Bucharest.

The authorities are currently working to increase the number of intensive care beds to deal with the surge in new infections, while stepping up its vaccination campaign.

About 50,000 vaccinations are administered per day on average in Romania. So far more than 2.2 million people have been vaccinated, of which over 1.3 million have completed both injections.

The government's objective is to vaccinate as many as 10 million people -- half of the country's population -- as soon as possible, 5 million by June 1, and 10 million by Aug. 1.

Currently, three vaccines -- Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca -- have been approved for use in Romania.

Globally, 269 candidate vaccines are still being developed in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain, and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on April 2.