Lack of trust in the Romanian government: now hit by a deadly COVID-19 wave
Lack of trust in the Romanian government: now hit by a deadly COVID-19 wave
As deaths rise sharply, dissatisfaction with the government is at an all time high. Here’s why Romania’s response to the pandemic went so wrong
Tens of hundreds of patients waiting on the hallways of the biggest hospital in Romania for a free bed. No available oxygen sockets. No free stretchers. Patients are sitting on plastic chairs, hooked to the machines next to them. Many can barely breathe; some still refuse to get vaccinated. Nurses are running around from one patient to the other. You can hear whispers of prayers in the corners of every room. And whispers of alleged corruption within the medical system — and not only — are as loud as ever.
“At some point you break down. You simply break down because you can’t do it anymore. And all of them are unvaccinated. All of them”, says a nurse. Her voice is distorted due to the multiple layers of protective equipment, masks, and face shields.
In January 2021, the European Commission set a target that “by summer 2021, member states should have vaccinated a minimum of 70% of the adult population.” The message reads as though each of the 27 state members needs to hit that 70% vaccination target. To put it bluntly, Romania was — and still isn’t — anywhere near that percentage. By the end of November — three months after the set EU deadline — Romania’s vaccination rate was at 37%, well below the European Union average of 74%.
A poll conducted by a local ONG revealed that the choice of unvaccinated people aged 20–85 to endanger not only themselves, but also the people around them has a consistent reason. They just “don’t trust it.”
Romania has the fourth lowest vaccination rate in Europe, with the third highest number of daily deaths reported in Europe. 2.7K deaths per million people, compared to Netherland’s 1K, Poland’s 2K or United Kingdom’s 2.1K.
However, that hasn’t always been the case. At the beginning of the year, Romania was among the countries with the most promising vaccination programme.
At the beginning of the summer of 2021, Iohannis said the vaccination campaign was a “success”. Even former Prime Minister Florin Citu proudly announced that the coronavirus had been “eliminated”, despite strong warnings about a fourth wave from doctors and experts.
So, what happened?
Where exactly did Romania go wrong? The answer is multifaceted and quite complicated, but the shorter answer is a gross lack of trust in the government. The president himself blamed “lack of real government agency action” as a reason for low vaccination rates, describing the current situation as “a national drama of appalling proportion.”
George Ion*, doctor at one of the biggest COVID-19 hospitals in the capital city has been working non-stop for almost 22 months now. He has seen horrors and miracles. He has witnessed people saying goodbye to their grandparents and parents through glass doors and layers of protective equipment. He feels like this endless battle is here to stay:
“This will be our reality from now on. To get inside a hospital now is to make a bet with God you’ll still make it out alive. We’re overcrowded. We’re overworked. I have never seen so many people die.”
As of November 18, there have been a total of 1.755.179 infections and 55.000 deaths.
October was the toughest month for many families who lost their loved ones — data shows that one person has died from the virus every five minutes, with more than 90% of deaths attributed to unvaccinated people. Almost 13% of the 42,000 overall pandemic-related deaths have occurred during gloomy October.
“It’s a sanitary catastrophe”, George adds.
This is all part of the mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis by the government. Lack of trust in the vaccine has created a domino effect of the Romanian government repeatedly letting its citizens down in crises. The last 20 months of the pandemic have been proof of a gross lack of trust which led to more than 57,000 lives lost as of December 10th. In October, a person was dying from the virus every five minutes. All the while, the country was also facing a political crisis, with the Citu government collapsing after a no-confidence vote in parliament. And this is not the first time the Romanian government has collapsed or failed to live up to its promises during moments of national instability. With each promise given by the government in critical situations, people argue that nothing — or not enough — has changed. Below are three other political, social, or medical crises over the last 6 years that shook the foundation of trust in the government, with promises being made and then forgotten.
The Collective Fire, 2015
During his presidential campaign in 2014, Klaus Iohannis stated that he will insist on “health to be treated as a key factor of development, a long-term resource, not a burden. Health investment means investments in health education, human resources and sanitary infrastructure.”
In 2015, Collective nightclub fire kills 65 people, making it the deadliest fire in Romania’s history. As soon as the pyrotechnics began, the soundproofing foam on the pillars supporting the ceiling caught fire. The fire spread rapidly, eventually causing the ceiling to collapse. Approximately 300 people in the club panicked and rushed to the only working exit door at the venue, creating a stampede.
Between 9 and 16 November, the Romanian General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations conducted more than 1,000 inspections at national level. They found over 3,200 violations in bars, venues, clubs, cinemas, and malls, leading to permanent closure or suspension to most of them. “Many of these businesses lacked correct fire permits or firefighting equipment and neglected to hold fire drills,” the Inspectorate said. ISU also noted widespread violations of bans on illegal flames, pyrotechnics and public smoking — and doled out fines totaling 1.5 million pounds. Also, it was later concluded by authorities that in order to save money, manufacturers would give hospitals diluted disinfectant, which led to at least 13 of the victims that died in hospitals being killed by bacteria.
The high-casualty fire caused by illegal indoor usage of outdoor pyrotechnics led to mass protests over the corruption linked to the fire, which eventually ended up in the government’s resignation.
After the tragedy, promises were made. Piedone, the mayor of the district where the fire happened resigned and announced that his political career was “over.“ “I will no longer be mayor Piedone, or politician Piedone. I’ll be the person named Cristian Piedone,” he wrote on Facebook a month after the persuasive public protests. Fast forward to 2020, he runs and wins the local elections and becomes mayor of another district with a slogan that was deemed cynical and insensitive by many (a literal translation would be “Be careful not to burn yourself when voting”).
President Klaus Iohannis then promised a restructuring of the system. He promised major changes within the medical healthcare system. No more corruption or unfairness. A new infrastructure that could handle medical crises better. Of course, there was no way he could have predicted a global pandemic that hit Romania forcefully.
Political Chaos, 2016
Not even a year later, the government led by the Social Democrat Party raised one of the biggest political corruption scandals in the latest years. Three Prime Ministers and almost 100 Ministers were changed during the course of a few months in 2016.
In 2012, a referendum vote was organised that would dismiss Traian Basescu, the president at that time. The referendum needed a presence of at least 60% to guarantee its validation, and Dragnea — the leader of the Social Democrat Party until 2016, is accused of defrauding the vote. The corruption case opened at the end of 2012, with Dragnea facing charges of signature falsification and abuse of political power and influence to coerce public authorities.
3382 days later, in April 2016, Liviu Dragnea is sentenced to two years in prison, and the entire government collapses once again.
August 10th Protests, 2018
In 2018, lack of satisfaction and trust in the Social Democrat Government that still hasn’t recovered from its corruption history make people take it on the streets to protest.
Protesters demanded the resignation of the government, objecting to the low wages and entrenched corruption in the country.
The biggest square market in Bucharest gathered almost 100.000 people, joined by tens of thousands of protestors from other large cities across the country and Europe.
These antigovernmental manifestations ended with the brutal intervention of law enforcement officers. Cristian Eremia, 23, had to be hospitalised as a result of attending the protest on August 10th.
“There is something so utterly frustrating about the state of our country at the moment. And it’s been this way for years and it probably won’t change any time soon,” he says.
One of the biggest protests in the last decade ends up with security guards beating up and using tear gas on peaceful protestors, some of them young or old. Over 700 people filed police reports. Again, vainly promises were made. Nothing changed.
This is regarded one of the biggest failures in the Romanian justice system, after the 1989 Revolution and the 1990s Mineriads.
Government officials from several ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
The tragic fire at the Collective nightclub in 2015 killed 64 people. A year later, trust in the government dropped upon corruption scandals which then led to the protest of August 10, 2018. When there is no trust in the government making critical decisions for the country’s future, people suffer. This domino effect of citizens’ continuous disbelief and anger at the government is evident in the scale of the tragedy of the last 22 months. Citizens’ compliance with preventive measures was crucial to contain the spread of the virus. Lack of trust in the government means that people doubt the competence and intentions of the decision-makers, which had a direct impact on the course of the vaccination campaign.
The pandemic took the life of 58,000 Romanians, out of which almost 85% over 60 years old and unvaccinated. Although starting with a successful vaccination rollout at the beginning of the year, Romania has been struggling for the last few months. Hospitals are running out of beds. The economy is tanking. Over the last five years, the government has collapsed and restructured 8 times, 4 of which were during the COVID-19 crisis.
Citizens’ satisfaction with the measures adopted by the Romanian government against several political, medical, or social crises decreased consistently throughout the years.
Not everything is gloomy though — Romania’s vaccination campaign has picked up speed again in recent weeks. Due to criticism in international media outlets and a growing panic among people, trust in the vaccine — or rather fear of dying in hospitals — has been increasing. According to the official report released on October 26, more than 150,000 people received a COVID-19 vaccine in 24 hours, and over 111,000 got their first dose — a record number for Romania.
“There’s nothing more I can do… Once they come to me, I take care of them as good as I can… as good as all of us here can. But at some point, it’s just about making sure you never end up inside a hospital during these months. For your own sake,” says Iulia Sorin*, a nurse at a COVID-19 hospital in Cluj.
“Corruption is so embedded in the medical system that it’s nearly impossible to change without the help of the judicial system,” Dr. Dan Arama wrote for the New York Times. And citizens argue that this type of unfairness happens across all public sectors. In Romania, trust in the government in February-March 2021 was at 3.4 point, below the European average of 3.9.
Each event in the past represents a domino piece that would result in the tragedy of the last year. The voices of people that are dissatisfied with the government are loud. Tens of thousands of deaths and economic instability are the final effects of this terrifying domino on Romania.
*Names have been altered for privacy reasons