According to the Ministry of Health, over 760 minors were diagnosed with COVID-19. Most are between 10 and 15 years old, and nine percent of them are less than a year old.

Ludmila, the mother of a five-year-old boy diagnosed with COVID-19, also tested positive for this deadly virus. She suspects that the boy got infected while playing at the playground.

"The child asks me why we are staying here, why we are in a blocked room, why no one is coming", Ludmila said. 

More than 120 coronavirus-infected patients are now hospitalized at the Municipal Clinical Hospital for Infectious Diseases for Children. Just over 80 of them are children, the others are parents. Doctors say that minors have a milder form of the disease.

However, there are exceptions, and in other countries similar complications have been observed with Kawasaki inflammatory syndrome, which is manifested by fever and rash. Such cases have not yet been reported in Moldova. Experts say that the rules for the protection of children are the same as for adults, except for the use of a protective mask for children under five years.

"A child from the age of five can wear a a mask but he does not always understand why these safety measures are required", said TATIANA ȘTIRBU, infectious disease doctor.

The People's Advocate for the rights of the child, Maia Bănărescu, submitted an approach in this regard to the Prime Minister Ion Chicu, in order to clarify the age from which children must wear protective masks in closed public spaces.