Committee: Both public and private employees to benefit of 10 anti-Covid tests per person free of any charge only for 30 days

The deputies from the Health Committee agreed that the private and state employees should each benefit from 10 free COVID tests at the workplace, but only for 30 days, compared to the previous proposal of two months. A new amendment to the bill has also been proposed: MPs discuss whether COVID antibody tests should be recognized, along with vaccination, testing and screening. But the chairman of the Health Commission, Nelu Tătaru, said that “there is no scientific evidence” to certify the validity of antibody testing.

We discussed the law as a whole, presenting the amendments that were tabled – PNL, USR, AUR. All the members of the commission took note of all these amendments, and to the extent that we need to have further sittings before the voting session“, Nelu Tătaru said in Parliament on Monday. He said that it was accepted that within 30 days the private and state employees could test for free with 10 tests for each person.

PSD’s previous proposal was that only unvaccinated people from the state should benefit from 20 COVID tests for two months.”These amendments can be withdrawn,” Tataru said, adding that there is currently no consensus on them.

The Liberal lawmaker said that the budgetary impact is 110 million lei per month. Asked about the proposal that COVID antibody tests be taken into account when obtaining the green certificate, within the draft law, the former Minister of Health said that “there were several opinions, but at this moment it is not agreed”. “There is no scientific evidence.” Several MPs demanded that antibody tests be recognized, along with vaccination, the positive test older than 15 days and the negative test. Basically, even those who were asymptomatic or did not report the disease could get a green certificate.

Previously, the project was blocked in the Chamber of Deputies, which is the decision-making chamber in this case. The PNL had taken the decision on Monday to abstain from voting on the PSD amendment on the allocation of state funds for 20 free tests for each unvaccinated person employed by the state for a period of two months. Those who have a contraindication to vaccination, who cannot be vaccinated, will be able to take the test for free.

The green certificate provides for vaccination against Covid, passing through the disease or testing. Nelu Tataru said that the green certificate will not take into account the incidence of cases.

Discussions on the law that imposes the green certificate on employees were blocked after Prime Minister Florin Cîţu said that the law is discriminatory for private employees, because it includes only for state employees the grace period of 60 days in which they can test for free.

The bill is now in committees in the Chamber of Deputies, the decision-making chamber, after it was rejected in the Senate. The draft law says that Romanian employees who are not vaccinated could benefit from free testing, for 60 days. If passed, the law could enter into force in December at the earliest.

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