Over 1,000 medical staff contract coronavirus in Romania

The number of healthcare staff infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, increased by 50 in Romania in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 1,031, authorities announced on Saturday So far, a total of 8,418 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Romania, according to the Strategic Communication Group, the official coronavirus communication task force, Xinhua reported.

The frontline medics account for over 12 percent of the total infections in the country.

The medical workers' union complained that the high infection rate among healthcare staff is due to the shortage of personal protective equipment.

In addition to the lack of protective equipment, especially at the beginning of the epidemic, analysts here said that healthcare staff did not understand the pathogen well and their awareness of personal protection was not strong enough. Long-time exposure to large numbers of infected patients also increased the risk of infection, according to local media reports.