The new Health Minister, Nelu Tătaru told an interview to Digi24 on Saturday evening that Romania is closer to step in the fourth scenario of the Coronavirus prevention, with a new military ordinance on the way. The minister revealed that authorities expect the epidemic peak to be reached in Romania somewhere in mid-April, when the number of infections might climb to 10,000.

Tataru said this will be mainly due to the return of other Romanians from abroad. He said that 200,000 Romanians from Diaspora had returned home so far, and 200,000 more are expected by Easter.

The Health Minister added that for scenario four of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic the military ordinance might also envisage that the people who are affected should not go into isolation if they have family members over the age of 65, but remain in quarantine.

Another provision of scenario 4 might also be that testing should be extended to “everyone which is considered medical personnel”.

In the 4th scenario, 36 more hospitals which are classified as support units will also intervene, bringing an additional 8,000 beds, beside the 2,000-2,300 which are currently used for people who tested positive for coronavirus.

“We are approaching scenario four, meaning that we’ll be treating light to medium cases at home, under medical supervision, sometimes even by volunteers, and patients with coronavirus and moderate-severe and critical cases will be treated in hospital. The moderate-severe will be in the infectious disease wards, and the critical ones in the intensive care wards, under ventilator or cardiovascular support. We also consider in scenario four that the asymptomatic medical personnel, but positive to coronavirus, will remain and treat patients infected with the coronavirus, which are hospitalized. We are thinking of a scenario four in which these support units intervene. If at this moment we have a capacity of 2,000-2,300 beds, once the 36 hospitals plus specialties such as dialysis or other pathologies, which have coronavirus infection, we will bring an additional 8,000 beds,” said Minister Tataru.

According to him, these support hospitals will need to bring, beside their share of beds, their share of intensive care equipment.