The bodies are piled out of the morgue of a hospital in Romania, while the country fights its fourth wave of Covid-19

(CNN) - "is relentless...Implacable, "said the nurse Claudiu Ionita, standing in front of a row of stretchers in the morgue of the University Hospital of Bucharest, Romania.On each stretcher there was a body inside a black plastic bag.

The morgue has capacity for 15 bodies, but the day CNN visited it, he had received 41.The excess of corpses filled the outer hall, while the regrets resonated inside the morgue.A woman was allowed to enter to take a last look at her father.

The Bucharest University Hospital is the largest medical center in the Romanian capital that treats Covid-19 patients and is going through the fourth wave that hits the country, the worst of all.

"I never thought, when I started this job, that I would live something like that," said Ionita."I never thought a catastrophe could happen like this, that we would end up sending entire families to the grave,".

Dra.Alexandra Monteanu, photographed at the Palatul Copiilor Vaccination Center, in Bucharest, on November 16, is willing to vaccinate all the necessary people, if they were only there.

Several floors above, all the beds except one of the intensive care units of the hospital, now expanded, were full.A nurse changed the sheets of the only free bed, empty because the person who occupied her lying now in the morgue.

Low vaccination levels in Romania

Romania has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Europe.

Just 36% of the population has been vaccinated, although the country's vaccination campaign had a good start, last December.

Medical workers and officials attribute this low vaccination rate to a series of factors, such as distrust in the authorities, deeply rooted religious beliefs and the avalanche of misinformation that circulates through social networks.

When Dra.Alexandra Monteanu, 32, came to work at one of Bucharest's vaccination centers after a night shift in the hospital, found that the assistance was scarce.It is perplexed because the severity of the disease does not seem to have penetrated."There are many doctors, among which I include me, who work with patients from COVID-19, and we are trying to tell people that this disease really exists," he said.

One of the people who has most manifested against the virus is Diana Sosoaca, a member of the Romanian Senate.In one of his many public events, he tried to prevent people from entering a vaccination center of their constituency, in the northeastern country.

A banner in Bucharest shows doctors working with Covid-19 patients with this message: "They are suffocating.They are begging us.They lament ".

"If they love their children, they stop vaccination," he says in a video posted on his Facebook page."Don't kill them!"

Vaccines offered in Romania have been widely tested for use in children and have proven safe and effective, but that has not prevented her and others from spreading crazy rumors on social networks and on local television.

Officials and medical staff are exasperated by the fact that public figures have done so much to undermine their efforts.

"Look at reality," said Colonel Dr.Valeriu Gheorghita, an army doctor who directs the national vaccination campaign."We have our intensive care units full of patients.We have many new cases.We have, unfortunately, hundreds of deaths every day.So this is reality.And more than 90% of patients who died were not vaccinated ".

In Bucharest, a huge banner has been placed, covering half of the facade of a building in an important boulevard."They are suffocating.They beg us.They lament ", son las palabras impresas en enormes letras negras sobre fotografías en blanco y negro de médicos luchando sobre pacientes de covid-19 en una unidad de cuidados intensivos.

Below, few passersby look at the poster, and even less care about sharing their thoughts with CNN.However, soon that poster will be placed in other large cities in the country.

Naculai Miron, mayor of the village of Bosanci, in the county of Sugeava, manifests against the vaccine: he believes that it is not sure.

"There is manipulation," said a woman who only gave her name as Claudia, adding: "There are people who do not believe in vaccines".

Mayor: "It's not a safe vaccine"

Nowhere is that suspicion than in the country.

The County of Sugeava, an hour of flight to the northeast of Bucharest, has the lowest vaccination rate in the country.

Here, the director of the main hospital, the DR.Alexandru Calancea, 40, speaks of the particularity of this region, where he was born and raised.

"This county is very religious.It is an area with a strong religious tradition and with many religious people.[...] Muy pocos[sacerdotes] están a favor de las vacunas, y definitivamente conozco a algunos que están en contra.Most decide not to say anything, neither for or against.We have evidence, from the hospital, of patients who come from the same religious communities, in which their priest, or their pastor, has advised them not to be vaccinated, without further ado ".

On the outskirts of Sugeava, in the town of Bosanci, a pastor of this type is also the mayor of the town.Naculai Miron has been one of the public personalities more contrary to vaccination in the country, and today is no different.

Newly placed tombs in the largest cemetery in Sugeav.

"We are not against vaccination, but we want to verify it, to satisfy our concerns, because there have been many side effects," he told CNN."We do not believe that the vaccine components are very safe.It is not a safe vaccine ".

The medical data does not convince him, nor the local head doctor, who led to see the CNN team.

Dra. Daniela Afadaroaie administra la vacuna a unas 10 personas cada dos días, utilizando la fórmula de Johnson & Johnson.The latest official records show that somewhat less than 11% of the town were vaccinated in early November 2021.

While talking about the situation of the people, Mayor Miron was around the doctor's table, ojeando the papers of her desk to see who had vaccinated.

"When will you get vaccinated, Mr. Mayor?" Apadaroaie asked, laughing.

"I don't need to vaccinate me," he replied."I'm perfectly healthy".The doctor's explanation that the vaccine helps to stay that way fell into a broken bag.

Pastor: "I believe more in what I see than I hear"

In rural villages such as this, poverty and lack of education, together with the personal influence of local leaders and traditional religious beliefs, they can constitute a deadly combination.

But local Pentecostal shepherd, Dragos Croitoru, insisted that he had no knowledge of any death by Covid-19 in the parish."Here, in the Church, we have no case of people of CORONAVIRUS.We have a zero percent mortality rate, I don't know anyone who has died of Coronavirus here in our parish.And I believe more in what I see than I hear, "he said.

Despite hearing in CNN that the bodies of the victims of COVID-19 filled the morgue of the Bucharest University Hospital, Croitoru was not convinced."Bucharest is bigger than Bosanci, which I know," he said with a laugh."We have not had any dead.We may have had some patients in the town, yes, how do I know, yes.But the mortality rate in our church has been zero ".

The mortality rate is certainly high in other places in this region, mostly rural.At the beginning of November, Suceava occupied third place in the Covid-19 mortality list throughout the country, according to the figures of the Public Health Unit, which carries the number of deaths.

A corner of the main cemetery of Suceav.In the Cemetery chapel a religious service is being held.In the hill, behind the chapel, the mourners gather for a funeral.Nearby, another grave is being prepared.

Wooden crosses on each new grave do not indicate the cause of death, so it is not clear how many died because of the virus.However, a man who works in one of the tombs says that the number of people buried lately is much greater than usual.

"Eternal repentance," says a tape placed in one of the tombs.

In the morgue of the University Hospital of Bucharest, a doctor nails a nail in a wooden coffin.A colleague spray the coffin with disinfectant.

For those who die from COVID-19, there will be no funerals to open drawer.

"The vaccine means the difference between life and death," said Ionita, the nurse."People should understand it.Maybe in their last minute they should understand it ".

For those who are wrapped in the black bags for corpses in front, it is too late.