President Iohannis: We believe that it is necessary to extend state of alert

President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that the state of alert should be extended, with fewer restrictions, and called on parliamentarians to proceed in this sense. "Given that we do not have a significant decrease in the number of new cases, the fact that we still have around 150 people in intensive care, hospitalized, the fact that the last weekend of relaxation was still felt, not in a good way, in terms of the number of new cases, it makes us still cautious and we believe that the state of alert should be extended," said the president, at the Cotroceni Palace. He pointed out that there would be fewer restrictions proposed in the next stage, but considers "it is not possible to continue without having this tool called the state of alert". At the same time, the president reminded that there are measures that will be further applied - social distancing, the wearing of the protective mask and the avoidance of crowds. Iohannis said that this continuation of the state of alert will be debated in the meeting by the members of the Executive and he also addressed the members of the Parliament, who must approve this measure. "Dear parliamentarians, be responsible, think that the virus does not disappear through a vote in Parliament, but if you support the Government, then we can efficiently control it as we have proven. We can efficiently control this spread of the epidemic," Iohannis said. The president considered that the measures taken so far have been correct. "Dear parliamentarians, do not question, now, at the end, these measures that have proved to be correct," Iohannis said. President Klaus Iohannis had a meeting on measures to manage the COVID-19 epidemic with Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, Minister of the Interior Marcel Vela, Minister of Health Nelu Tataru, Minister of National Defense Nicolae Ciuca, Minister of the Economy, Energy and the Business Environment Virgil Popescu, and the Head of the Department for Emergency Situations, Raed Arafat.AGERPRES(RO - author: Oana Ghita, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Maria Voican)