Romania’s Parliament passed a law Tuesday that will prevent COVID-19 patients from leaving hospitals.

From February through June, Romania’s government used cabinet decrees to hospitalize those who were infected and to quarantine or home-isolate those thought to have been exposed to COVID-19. In early July, Romania’s Constitutional Court determined the government could not enforce mandatory quarantine or hospitalization through government decrees. The court ruled that those measures had to be taken through parliamentary law.

Because there was neither a parliamentary law nor enforceable government decrees, about 1,000 infected individuals left hospitals during July. Thousands more were not hospitalized at all. This resulted in a drastic spike in COVID-19 cases.

The law passed Tuesday was created to control the virus spread, preventing patients from leaving hospitals and enforcing quarantine. Prime Minister Ludovic Orban spoke at the Senate in support of the law on July 16, stating that it was very important and would allow Romania “to act effectively against the spread of the virus and to defend the health and life of citizens.”

At the time that the law was passed on Tuesday, Romania had recorded about 38,139 cases. By Wednesday morning, the government stated that the number of cases had risen by 1,030. The government has confirmed 40,163 cases and 2,101 deaths since late February.