Ex-minister dies following COVID-19 infection

Bogdan Stanoevici, a former Social Democrat minister has died in hospital where he has been admitted since early December when he had been infected with the novel coronavirus.

A actor by profession, Stanoevici, aged 62, was minister for Romanians in Diaspora several years ago in Victor Ponta Cabinet, but he was also manager of the Metropolitan Circus in Bucharest and ran in the presidential elections in 2019.

Stanoevici  was admitted at Pantelimon Hospital in Bucharest. He was hospitalized on December 16 last year at “Sfantul Pantelimon” Hospital in the Capital as he was infected with SARS-CoV-2. Two days later, the former minister was transferred in intensive care in serious condition. He was taken to the Heart Institute on Christmas Eve, on December 24. He died this morning.

According to Antena 3 private broadcaster, Bogdan Stanoevici had recently underwent a surgery with his lungs put in repose as they were almost entirely affected.

The former actor-minister was a coronavirus skeptical, claiming the virus had been created in the laboratory. In May last year, Bogdan Stanoevici attended a rally against the sanitary measures imposed by the authorities to contain the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, where he kissed and hugged the other protesters.

At the same, Bogdan Stanoevici refused to wear a protection face mask during a press conference in November, arguing he is healthy and healthy people don’t have to wear masks.

Before the parliamentary elections in December 2020, he would claim that the coronavirus had been created in the lab, while “the patent is registered in Paris and New York”.