# Comparison of the Evolution of the COVID-19 Disease between Romania and Italy
## 1 Introduction  
In December 2019, several cases of pneumonia were detected in the Chinese province of Wuhan. Many common pneumonia and respiratory tract infections were excluded from the investigations, and a new coronavirus infection was discovered and confirmed. The new coronavirus was called SARS-CoV-2, and the disease caused by the virus was COVID-19. The virus is highly contagious and could be very dangerous, especially for the elderly and people with chronic diseases. To reduce the number of infected people countries have approached the problem in very different ways, mostly taking relatively strict measures to prevent the spread, some countries have started implementing measures relatively late, while others had a completely different approach of solving the problem, namely considering heard immunization, without setting restrictions. At the beginning of 2020, information channels appeared more and more frequently in Romania about a new highly contagious virus that wreaked havoc shortly after its appearance in China. Given the fact that China is geographically located at a considerable distance from Romania, the majority of the population at that time did not consider that it could reach the territory of their country. Unfortunately, the global mobility of the population in the world yield a fast spreading of the virus and the first infections in Romania occurred within just one month. It was soon declared a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) officials, and the entire academic community mobilized to stop the spread of the disease. Several factors influence the spread of COVID-19. Predicting the course of the spread of the virus is very important for dealing with the disease and its consequences. To predict endemic and pandemic processes, researchers have developed various models. [PERSON] and all [1] used the Poisson model to analyze the evolution of the disease in six Western European countries, and the statistical analysis allowed them to make predictions about the duration, maximum point and total percentage of the population that will be infected. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [2] analyzed the dynamics of the new coronavirus in China, Italy and France. The authors simulated the effects of drastic isolation measures taken in Italy to reduce the infection rate. [PERSON] et al. [3] proposed a conceptual model for Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, [PERSON] et al. [4] estimated how the transmission of Covid19 had varied overtime during January 2020 and February 2020 in Wuhan. [PERSON] et al. [5] applied a deterministic model to forecast the spread of COVID-19 in India and [PERSON] and [PERSON] [6] analyzed the impact of non-pharmaceutical control measures on the population dynamics of the new Covid-19 in Lagos, Nigeria using a mathematical model. Since there are many links between Romania and Italy, we try to analyze in this paper whether the evolution of the virus spread in Romania was similar to that in Italy [7]. The occurrence of the COVID-19 disease in Romania was not due to tourism or direct trade, cultural and economic exchange with China, but to the mostly economic and work related mobility of an important part of the Romanian population throughout Europe, especially to Italy, Spain, Germany or Great Britain. We chose a comparative analysis of the evolution of the spread in Italy and Romania, as Italy was the first European country to fight the major outbreak of Covid-19, it is notorious that many Romanian citizens work, live and travel to Italy, and a considerable amount of statistical data was available for the analysis. According to the Italian National Institute statistics website [8], many Romanian citizens worked in the areas Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy Trentino Alto-Adige, Friuli Venezia Giulia, that were, in April 2020, heavily affected by the disease COVID-19.