COVID-19 has played out in Romania in a similar way to that in many other European countries. The government implemented decisive early measures which were able to keep the infection and mortality rates relatively low. This paper considers three distinctive aspects of the situation in Romania. First, the situation was complicated by the influence of transnational migrant workers, large numbers of whom returned to Romania when the pandemic started, accounting for distinct geographical variations in the rates of infection.

We describe the early spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the first human-to-human transmission networks, in Romania. We profiled the first 147 cases referring to sex, age, place of residence, probable country of infection, return day to Romania, COVID-19 confirmation date and the probable modes of COVID-19 transmissions. Also, we analysed human-to-human transmission networks and explored their structural features and time dynamics. In Romania, local cycles of transmission were preceded by imported cases, predominantly from Italy. We observed an average of 4.8 days (s.d.

This paper provides a rapid assessment method of potentially infectious waste flow related to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in Romania focusing on the emergency state (from 16 March to 14 May 2020) where a national lockdown was in force with restrictive and social distancing measures concerning population mobility and economic activities. Medical and municipal waste management systems are critical services in combating the virus spread in the community.

This dataset comprises street-level traces of traffic flow as reported by Here Maps™ for 13 cities of Romania from 15th. of May 2020 and until 5th. of June 2020. This covers the time two days before lifting of the mobility restrictions imposed by the COVID19 nation-wide State of Emergency and until four days after the second wave of relaxation, announced for 1st. of June 2020. Data were sampled at a 15-min interval, consistent with the Here API update time. The data are annotated with relevant political decisions and religious events which might influence the traffic flow.

[No abstract available]

In this contribution, I discuss potential risk to the health of people with disabilities in residential care institutions during the COVID-19 outbreak by looking at evidence from Romania. As an academic who has studied deinstitutionalization of services for people with disabilities in Romania, I argue that residential care institutions for people with disabilities are at risk of becoming sites for community contagion with COVID-19. These institutions are often located in remote and economically peripheral areas of the country that have been characterized by high rates of outmigration.