Romania’s economy will no longer afford new quarantine measures if there is a second wave of positive cases with coronavirus, said on Thursday the president of the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK), Dragos Anastasiu.

“Everyone understood that a total lockdown can’t be the best solution. I think people understood what personal responsibility and industry responsibility mean, and I think if the second wave comes and we will not have a vaccine until then, which is very possible, I think the measures will be different than they were two months ago. I do not think that the Romanian economy can afford such a thing. I understand the medical risk, epidemiological risk, we do not underestimate it, we do not believe in conspiracy theory, but I believe that there will have to be a balance between mandatory measures to slow the spread of a disease, whatever it is, and the effects that these measures produce. We cannot afford a second wave of measures of this kind, from an economic point of view,” said Dragos Anastasiu, at Digi 24, according to Agerpres.

The President of the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry stressed that the total quarantine measure had the effect of an enormous bill to be paid.

“Economically, we all understand what lockdown means and what the effects are and that there is a huge bill that someone has to pay. By isolating at home we can avoid any kind of disease, we can avoid, by banning tobacco, a lot cardiovascular and lung diseases, so there are measures by which we can avoid any disease in this world, the question is at what cost,” argued Dragoş Anastasiu.

The president of the AHK pointed out that the Romanian government, unlike the German government, cannot help the economy very much, due to the massive budget deficit.