[News]Bodies pile up outside hospital morgue as Romania struggles with fourth wave of Covid

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https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/22/europe/romania-covid-19-vaccine-skepticism-intl-cmd/index.html

 

Bucharest University Hospital is the Romanian capital's largest medical facility treating Covid-19 patients and is struggling through the country's fourth wave, its worst yet.

"I never thought, when I started this job, that I would live through something like this," said Ionita. "I never thought such a catastrophe could happen, that we'd end up sending whole families to their graves."

 

 

Europe is learning a crucial lesson -- vaccines work, but they alone won't stop Covid now

Europe is learning a crucial lesson -- vaccines work, but they alone won't stop Covid now

Several floors above, all the beds but one in the hospital's now-expanded intensive care units were full. A nurse was changing the sheets on the one vacant bed -- empty, because the person who occupied it now lay in the morgue.

 

 

Romania has one of Europe's lowest vaccination rates.

Just under 36% of the po[CENSORED]tion has been vaccinated, even though the country's vaccination campaign got off to a good start last December.

Medical workers and officials attribute this low vaccination rate to a variety of factors, including suspicion of the authorities, deeply held religious beliefs, and a flood of misinformation surging through social media.

Dr. Alexandra Munteanu, pictured at the Palatul Copiilor vaccination center in Bucharest on November 16, is ready to vaccinate as many people as needed -- if only they would come.

 

 

 

Dr. Alexandra Munteanu, pictured at the Palatul Copiilor vaccination center in Bucharest on November 16, is ready to vaccinate as many people as needed -- if only they would come.

When Dr. Alexandra Munteanu, 32, arrived for duty at one of Bucharest's vaccination centers after an overnight shift in hospital, she found turnout was low. She's perplexed that the gravity of the disease just doesn't seem to have sunk in. "There are lots of doctors, myself included, who work with Covid patients, and we are trying to tell people this disease actually exists," she said.

 

 

 

One of the country's most vocal and high-profile anti-vaxxers is Diana Sosoaca, a member of the Romanian Senate. In one of her many public stunts she tried to block people from entering a vaccine center in her constituency in the northeast of the country.

"If you love your children, stop the vaccinations," she says in a video clip on her Facebook page. "Don't kill them!"

The most important way of stopping another Covid surge

The most important way of stopping another Covid surge

The vaccines on offer in Romania have been extensively tested for use in children and have proven to be safe and effective, but that hasn't stopped her and others from spreading wild rumors on social media and local television.

Officials and medical personnel are exasperated that public figures have done so much to undermine their efforts.

 

 

 

"Look at the reality," said Col. Dr. Valeriu Gheorghita, an army doctor who runs the national vaccination campaign. "We have our intensive care units full of patients. We have lots of new cases. We have, unfortunately, hundreds of deaths every day. So this is the reality. And more than 90% of patients who died were unvaccinated