16 months, 30,000 deaths: The sad reality of the virus in Hungary

Five patients died over the past 24 hours, while 55 new Covid infections were registered, koronavirus.gov.hu said on Thursday. With this, the number of Hungarian victims exceeded 30,000.

It is not possible to get away from such a global trauma without loss, but things could have turned out better. Within Europe, relative to the population, the most fatalities have been registered in Hungary. Maybe the negative “record” that Hungary holds could have been avoided. There are more than 3,000 Hungarian victims of the epidemic per million people; only the Czech Republic and Bulgaria are approaching this rate somewhat. Only in Slovakia, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia did the number of fatalities cross the 2,000 line.

• These risk factors may bring another wave of epidemics in Hungary

444 writes that rich countries also suffered, with deaths rising in Germany or the Netherlands during the autumn-winter wave, but nowhere as steep as in Hungary.

Source: Our World in data

According to Telex, it would be more accurate to phrase the statistics this way: since March last year, 30,000 fatalities have been registered of those who have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

It is extremely difficult to determine how many of the 30,000 fatalities (corresponding to the population of Kiskunfélegyháza) were direct deaths from Covid-19.

In many cases in the second and third waves of the epidemic, it was clear that death was caused by pneumonia, severe respiratory failure, or multiorgan inflammation due to the coronavirus infection. In other cases, it was more characteristic that the organs of often elderly patients, already weakened by various chronic diseases, tumours, and cardiovascular diseases, could no longer cope with the virus. In this case, it is more difficult to determine the primary cause of death – some of these patients would have died even from an influenza pandemic.

We are probably looking for a single explanation in vain. From epidemiological constraints through the quality of healthcare and human health to the elderly care system, a lot goes into where and how many victims the virus takes. All this may have contributed to the epidemic in Hungary, but opinions differ on the extent to which these factors affected the outcome.

The daily statistics

So far, 5,523,878 people have received the first jab, while 5,126,330 have been fully vaccinated.

The number of active infections has declined to 37,599, while hospitals are treating 72 Covid patients, 13 of whom need respiratory assistance.

There are 1,678 people in official quarantine, while 6,179,187 tests have been officially carried out.

Since the first outbreak, 808,393 infections have been registered, while fatalities have risen to 30,004. 740,790 people have made a full recovery.

So far, most infections have been registered in Budapest and Pest County, followed by Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Győr-Moson-Sopron, and Hajdú-Bihar counties.

Read alsoVirologist: 300,000 vaccinated Hungarians are not really protected

Source: MTI, 444, Telex