Over half million people checked for COVID-19 compliance in Romania in one week

The Interior Ministry (MAI) last week checked 545,000 people and 65,000 places of interest - most of them food establishments as part of COVID-19 containment measures.

"Almost 36,000 fines amounting to six million lei were issued for non-compliance with health safety protection measures. More than 31,000 fines were handed for failure to wear a protective mask, 4,000 fines for failure to comply with restrictions on the movement of persons, and 228 for violation of quarantine or isolation," MAI spokeswoman Monica Dajbog said on Friday.

She added that fines were also issued for non-compliance with measures for the organisation of events, and event participation, as well as for the violation of measures regarding the transport of people and organising work hours.

"Investigations have been launched against 11 people for thwarting disease control," Dajbog said.

Almost 70 people called the 0800.800.165 toll-free line to report non-compliance with the COVID-19 health protection measures. In addition, ten other complaints were received with pictures or photographs. All notifications were directed for checks to the relevant authorities, and legal measures were taken where appropriate.

Most of the reports regarded failure to wear a protective mask or failure to keep social distance.

"As part of the actions conducted to contain the effects of the pandemic in the last seven days, MAI carried out approximately 380 missions to accompany and protect COVID-19 vaccine shipments from regional storage centres to county public health directorates, hospitals and vaccination centres. Approximately 1,400 MAI staff were mobilised for these shipments," Dajbog added.

On average, more than 6,650 police officers, 2,600 gendarmes, 1,600 border guards and approximately 1,200 emergency management staff took part in the checks.

The MAI staff are supported in their actions by local police and employees from the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Authority (ANSVSA), the National Consumer Protection Agency (ANPC), the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour, and the Ministry of Transport.