Hoping to appeal to members of the public, Romanian doctors sent an open letter titled "a cry of despair" on Wednesday begging for unvaccinated people to get COVID-19 shots as the country's fragile health care infrastructure trembles beneath a surge of infections and deaths.
Vaccine skepticism is high in the EU member nation, where Romania is reaching new records this fall. The College of Physicians of Bucharest, a nongovernmental organization representing doctors, said in the letter to Romanians that the nation's hospital system has "reached the limit," adding that a lack of vaccinations has revealed a "failure of trust" between doctors and the public.
"We are desperate because every day we lose hundreds of patients who die in Romanian hospitals," the letter reads. "We are desperate, because, unfortunately, we have heard too many times: I can't breathe.... I'm not vaccinated."
Along with Bulgaria, Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe. The country's centrist government was toppled in a no-confidence vote last week.
For more reporting from The Associated Press, see below.
Romania, a country of 19 million people, is the European Union member nation with the population second-least vaccinated against COVID-19. Just 34 percent of its adults are fully inoculated, compared to an EU average of 74 percent.
On Tuesday, Romania reported daily pandemic records of nearly 17,000 new confirmed cases and 442 deaths. Data from health authorities indicate that more than 90 percent of coronavirus patients who died last week were unvaccinated against COVID-19.
"Every day we witness tragedies: dying patients, suffering families, doctors who have reached the end of their powers," the letter from Bucharest's doctors reads.
The pressure on hospitals prompted Romanian officials last week to suspend non-emergency medical procedures for 30 days and to ask the EU for help.
Janez Lenarcic, the EU commissioner for crisis management, said last week that the EU would send 250 oxygen concentrators to Romania, which on Tuesday received 5,200 doses of monoclonal antibodies from Italy. Several dozen COVID-19 patients will also be sent to intensive care units in Hungary this week.
Dragos Zaharia, a primary care doctor at Bucharest's Marius Nasta Institute of Pneumology, thinks Romanian authorities should have enlisted a "famous personality" to lead the country's vaccination campaign.
"Only anonymous guys are leading this fight," Zaharia told The Associated Press. "It's heartbreaking for us when we know that a lot of those who died could have lived, if they would have been vaccinated."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
