Coronavirus – Epidemic in Hungary yet to peak

The Covid-19 epidemic’s figures are still increasing in Hungary, Cecília Müller, the chief medical officer, told an online press conference on Sunday, but noted that 80 percent of those infected will have “very mild symptoms only”.

“There is no reason for those contracting the virus to despair,” she said.

Concerning a seniors’ home in Budapest’s eastern suburbs, where 10 residents have recently died of Covid-19 and over 200 tested positive for the new coronavirus, Müller said that a second round of tests was under way, with results expected to come back on Monday.

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Speaking at the same press conference, a spokesman for the operative board coordinating national efforts against the epidemic, said that people tended to violate curfew rules more at weekends than on weekdays.

Tibor Lakatos said that the police had fined 496 violators and initiated legal proceedings in 425 cases during the past 24 hours. “People go out more easily, breaking the rules, at weekends,” he said.

For that matter, Viktor Orbán inspected the Magyar Imre Hospital in Ajka, central Hungary, designated to treat patients infected with the novel coronavirus.

The hospital has been upgraded to receive up to 86 patients in need of intensive care, from the original 6 ICU beds, Bertalan Havasi said.

In a video the prime minister posted on his Facebook page, Orbán noted that one-seventh of all confirmed coronavirus patients have been recorded in a care home run by the Budapest municipality. Hungary has 1,100 homes for the elderly nationwide, and the country will have to prepare for the disease emerging in all of them, Orbán said.

Orbán called a recent government order to free 60 percent of beds in every hospital a “dress rehearsal for the worst-case scenario”, adding that hospitals have to be prepared to receive all Covid-19 patients even if “bad comes to worst”.

“Everybody can sleep peacefully; all that become ill, will have a bed in a hospital,” Orbán said.

Source: MTI