Romania Covid-19 Summer Update: Nobody Cares Anymore

It’s been a bit over three weeks since Romania relaxed most restrictions regarding the coronavirus pandemic. The country is in a state of alert since May 15th, and every two weeks more and more restrictions are lifted. But nobody seems to care about them anymore.

The day prior to Romania switching to a more relaxed state, there were 245 new cases in the country. The day after, 367.

Yesterday, we had 189 new cases. The numbers since restrictions started to be lifted were pretty much constant, with a low of 119 confirmed cases in a day and a high of 238. So the virus is definitely not gone.

What is troubling if you look at the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Romania, is the fact that there seems to be a slight upwards trend in the past few days.

The numbers were pretty much low in the first two weeks following the relaxation, at around 150 (maybe less) per day, on average. But starting June 4th, we had 238, 196, 187 and 189 new cases each day. And I fear that the numbers will go up as more restrictions are lifted.

The problem? Nobody cares anymore!

Since Romania wasn’t hit by the new virus as badly as other European countries, people didn’t really respect the required measures for safety. But now, they seem to consider that the threat is over. Their behavior proves this.

Coronavirus crowds
Crowds everywhere. Nobody cares.

While wearing masks is mandatory in all shops or public transport vehicles, people don’t like that. Almost all of them wear their mask on their chin or at most covering their mouth only.

Outside? From maybe 50% plus of people wearing a mask during the state of emergency, we’re now down to maybe 10%. Large groups are out and enjoying the nice weather. Parents and kids go out to play with absolutely no protection in mind. Most joke about this virus.

In Romania, many people still believe that this is a hoax. That this is nothing but a cold. That this is not real. Manipulation. Something that won’t happen to them. People don’t care about anything else but what they believe.

When the government made it mandatory for all people entering a building to have their temperature taken (from a distance, too), fights ensured. People were unhappy and complaining. People were arrested. They didn’t want their temperature taken. I can’t understand why. Safety comes first for me.

But this is how people are. Not just here in Romania, but everywhere in the world. And it upsets me greatly, because I don’t want to go through a second round of emergency measures, being stuck at home because people don’t care. Or they think they’re smarter.

This is not something you can run away from. This is not something you can see. And if people won’t see it, they won’t believe it. I know many who wouldn’t believe it even if they saw it. This is how the world is nowadays.

We live in a world where going out to get drunk with your friends is more important that your own health or that of your loved ones. When having your temperature taken is a reason for protest and considered unacceptable. But at the same time, wearing a mask or washing your hands is unacceptable.

Coronavirus crowds Romania Summer

What I hate the most? People smoking and spreading their lung particles in the air. Now that the weather is nice, everybody’s smoking outside and you have to inhale whatever comes out of their lungs. I am not sure if you can get the virus this way, but it definitely makes me uncomfortable.

People don’t show this virus the respect that it deserves and this is the recipe for disaster. This is not something to be taken lightly, but most people don’t care about this. And looking at the slight – but obvious – increase in new cases proves me that things will get worse.

I hope that I am wrong.

But I definitely am not going to risk it in any way. I am still doing my best to keep myself safe and my family as well. I hate it that others don’t care about this, increasing the chances of me getting sick. But unfortunately, there is not a lot that I can do.

But one of the things that I have done and which I’ve been keeping a secret for a while now is that we bought a house. After spending two months stuck inside our apartment, I knew that this is the thing that had to be done. I bought a house, so that we can spend time outside in the yard, enjoying the nice weather and staying away from the people that don’t care.

Of course, we couldn’t afford a house in the city, so we got one in a village. You probably know that we had bought a house in a village years ago – what a failure that was! But this one has all the amenities that we need and we can’t wait to move in.

Yes, the plan is to move there at least by the end of autumn. Stay away as much as possible from the crowds that don’t care. Enjoy the fresh air. Enjoy nature and the slower paced living. And potentially have a place to retreat to in case things will get worse during the cold season.

This is almost cuckoo-crazy stuff, I know. I tend to be a bit paranoid. I know. But I always said that it’s best to be safe than sorry. I am doing everything that I can on my part and if anything bad happens, I know that there wasn’t anything that I could’ve done more.

Of course, I also dreamed about a nice village home to retreat to during the summer or weekends, but that’s another story…

Until then, I can only hope that one of two miracles will happen: either people start behaving better and treating this coronavirus with more respect, or the sheer luck that we had until now, preventing a catastrophe, will keep on going.

Stay safe, everybody! Stay healthy!

Calin
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12 thoughts on “Romania Covid-19 Summer Update: Nobody Cares Anymore”

  1. Congratulations on the new home! I’m sure it’ll be wonderful for your family.
    As for the pandemic, I didn’t endure three months of lockdown just to blow it now. I’m right there with you, taking all the precautions and following the rules. I think Romania did a great job up until now, but it’s obvious people have had enough and are showing a tendency to go a little nuts. This seems to be true everywhere. I know for a fact that my home country has gone bat s**t crazy. So, in spite of restrictions lifting, We’re going to take a little more time away from the crowds just to see what happens.

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  2. I hate to sound callous, but I am hoping “natural selection” will weed out the irresponsible and militantly ignorant pandemic-deniers. I know they can infect many innocent people through their irresponsible behavior, but nothing short of them catching the virus themselves and suffering from it will change their minds. I wonder what the situation is like in Italy and Spain, two other Latin countries that were hit hard by the pandemic. Is there the same resistance to safety measures and denial of the threat in those countries? My impression is there isn’t. People simply won’t learn until they themselves are affected. On a positive note, congratulations on your new house. I am looking forward to seeing some pictures of your new house.

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    • I watched some Youtube videos and it seems that people in Italy and Spain are more careful. I am sure that there are people who don’t care everywhere in the world and I totally agree that most won’t believe it until it happens to them. The problem here, as you mentioned, is the fact that these people can also do harm to others while learning their lesson. But we’ll see how this goes – the day after publishing this article, the numbers seemed to go down again… hopefully they keep doing this 🙂

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  3. Thinking I may have to move to Romania in the next year or 2…. the quest to find something good in Romania will need to be a full time search.

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  4. I won’t mention any names;-), but there’s a certain man (obese and orange) in the USA who sure doesn’t care.
    Go USA! We’re no. 1!!!
    Glad Romania isn’t!

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  5. Calin: Oh, congrats on the new house! (No view of the village cemetery?) Will you share pictures? Did you sell your apartment? I know you put in so much work into it! Did you sell your fixer-upper cottage? Does son Romanian need to go to a new school? Are you still close to Drobeta? So many nosy questions from me! ~Teil

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    • Hello Teil,

      Thanks for the nice wishes! No view of the village cemetery, fortunately. There will definitely be some content related to this village house coming soon – we just need to settle in a little bit. The plan is to live there while the weather is nice and move to the comfort of the apartment over the winter. We will change the schooling ways for our son as well… we’ll have all the details in the future, in a series of articles (and maybe more *wink wink*)

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  6. OMG! Huge news indeed! Congratulations on the new house. I suspected as much when l noticed you weren’t around as much :-). Awesome, and l can’t wait to see the new home. I have been avoiding reading much about anything covid related because l am so tired of these twats who refuse to take things seriously and l somehow missed notice of this post.

    I’m with you in that l do not want to relive the confinement. I see all these people gearing up for travel and l just shake my head. For now, I am glad the Spanish government is keeping out people from the U.S. but only time will tell how bad this is going to get. We went out for the first time to the central market last week and it’s pretty quiet here, unlike Barcelona and Rome where they are out in full force already according to my MIL. Sigh.

    Congratulations once again on the house. I am sure it puts your mind at ease, which is all one can ask for these days with all that is going on in the world.

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    • I understand the need to stay away from news related to the virus. I stopped reading most of it as well. Things are not over yet and unfortunately some people don’t understand this. We’ve seen over 300 cases in the past three days here, after they managed to get them down to around 150 for a few days. Things are not looking good.

      But yes, the new village house was what we needed (or what we afforded based on our needs – I wouldn’t have minded getting a huge villa with a pool, but this one has to do). We’ll soon have more details on that and since we’re now finally settled in, I’m ready to get back to work 🙂

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