Coronavirus in Romania: Army deploys mobile hospital near Bucharest to treat Covid-19 patients. Authorities prepare for spike in the number of cases

The Romanian Army has started deploying a military hospital at the Ana Aslan Institute in Otopeni, near Bucharest, where mostly mild cases of Covid-19 infection will be treated, the Defense Ministry announced in a press release.

The hospital should become operational within five days and also needs to get authorized before it will start receiving patients.

The same military hospital was deployed in 2015 when it was supposed to treat potential Ebola infection cases. It was also used in NATO military exercises in 2019, including Vigorous Warrior – the biggest medical military exercise ever organized by NATO, which was hosted by Romania.

Romanian authorities prepare for a spike in the number of Covid-19 cases

Although Romania still has a relatively low number of Covid-19 cases compared to other European countries (260 cases on Wednesday, March 18), the authorities expect the number to increase significantly in the next weeks.

Nelu Tataru, a secretary of state in the Health Ministry, told Digi24 on Wednesday evening (March 18) that the worst-case scenario for Romania would be for the Covid-19 virus to spread at an alarming rate and reach 10,000 cases of infection in a short time, which may happen sometime after mid-April.

“In this scenario, in which the health system would be overwhelmed, we would apply what you see in Italy and Spain, meaning that only serious cases would be treated in hospitals, and patients with mild and moderate disease evolution would be treated at home,” Tataru explained

However, in an optimistic scenario, the increase in the number of cases would occur at a slow pace, and the risk groups would be less affected, keeping the current trend in Romania, in which the majority of people infected are in the 40-45 years age group, according to the Health Ministry official.

Romania is currently in the third scenario elaborated by the authorities (up to 1,000 confirmed cases).

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(Photo source: MApN)