Romania is now trying to weather a perfect storm. The fourth wave is the country's deadliest by far because Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the EU.
Romania was the first in the EU to lift restrictions and relax other measures - but next-to-last in terms of vaccination rates. The plummeting vaccine interest in Romania comes from a long-standing mistrust in authorities, which the ongoing political crisis can only exacerbate.
The macabre scenes from past days with town halls across the country using excavators to dig burial plots for recently Covid deceased, as cemeteries and undertakers can no longer cope with the large number of dead, led to a surge in the number of those wanting to vaccinate.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria has also broken its previous record for daily Covid-19 deaths. Over a period of 24 hours on Tuesday (2 November), 310 people died in Bulgaria (in comparison to Romania's record 591.)
Bulgaria is the least-vaccinated country in the EU.
Similar to Romania, more than 90 percent of patients hospitalised for Covid-19 are not vaccinated. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control reported that just 25.5 percent of Bulgaria's adults are fully-vaccinated, lower that Romania's 37.2 percent. This is far below the EU average of 75 percent.
Bulgaria, with the second-highest mortality rate after Romania, has also been plagued by fake news and medical specialists calling for people not to vaccinate.
One such example is Bulgarian infectious disease expert, Atanas Mangarov. Mangarov, head of a Covid-19 care unit at a Sofia hospital, insists mask-wearing and vaccines are not necessary and promotes herbal teas as a treatment.
