March 26 (SeeNews) - Romania's government decided to tighten restrictions on movement and shopping in an attempt to curb a surge in new cases of coronavirus infection, it said.
A nationwide curfew from 8pm until 5am will be in force and shops will close starting 6pm during Friday-Sunday in areas with more than 4 coronavirus cases per 1,000 inhabitants, the government said in a statement on Thursday evening.
Currently, Bucharest, Ilfov, Brasov, Hunedoara, Timis and Cluj have more than 4 cases per 1,000 people, the latest data from the health ministry showed.
In areas where the coronavirus infection rate exceeds 7.5 cases per 1,000 inhabitants, those restrictions will be enforced for the entire week. Currently, only Ilfov county has an infection rate higher than 7.5, data showed.
The restrictions will not apply to pharmacies, petrol stations and providers of delivery services.
The government also decided to shorten the night curfew by six hours during the coming Easter holidays for people who want to attend religious masses.
Wearing masks remains compulsory in all public spaces across the country, regardless of the number of new coronavirus cases registered in a specific area.
On March 10, the government extended the night curfew by an hour, from 10 pm instead of 11 pm, until 5am, and extended the state of alert introduced to limit the spread of the Covid-19 disease by 30 days.
On Thursday, the Romanian authorities reported 6,600 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total count to 919,794. Of them,825,208 have recovered. The death toll since the outbreak of the disease has climbed to 22,719, health ministry data showed. Also, a record number of 1,348 coronavirus patients were in the intensive care units.
Romania started its anti-coronavirus vaccination campaign on December 27. So far, 978,528 people have been vaccinated with the first dose, while 883,118 people have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine.