A state of public health emergency was declared in the municipality of Chisinau until March 15. The decision was taken by the Extraordinary Public Health Commission of Chisinau. An orange alert was issued given the unfavorable epidemiological situation as regards community transmission of the Omicron variant, IPN reports.

The Commission maintained the COVID-19 protection measures, such as wearing of masks in all closed areas, disinfection of hands in stores, shopping centers and other places and avoidance of crowdedness and keeping of a distance of at least one meter at organized public events.

The Commission asks the Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Company to set up a common center for coordinating COVID-19 admissions in national and municipal hospitals. Another request is to review the COVID-19 testing recommendations by specifying when PCR and rapid tests should be done.

The local medical associations, suburban health centers and private medical centers will ensure vaccination in the municipality of Chisinau so as to active an immunization rate of 70% by the end of March 2022.