Hungary’s restrictions to stay in place until Jan 11 ?

Hungary’s current, strict coronavirus-related restrictions will be kept in place until January 11, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Monday, after a meeting of the central board coordinating efforts against the epidemic.

Orbán said on Facebook that a decision concerning restrictions on Christmas Eve would be made later.

The current curfew between 8pm and 5am will stay in place, Orbán said, adding that “we will decide about a possible exception for Christmas Eve on December 21, in view of the situation then.” He added, however, that

December 31 would be no exception, with a ban on New Year’s Eve parties.

Orbán said that a vaccine would be made available in the “foreseeable future”, adding that people wishing to be inoculated could start registering on Tuesday.

“We are working for Hungary to be among the first countries to get the vaccine,” he said.

The government is in talks with every player, without regard to political or corporate interests, he said. The only priority is to bring the vaccine to Hungarians as soon and as safely as possible, he said.

Regarding the testing of frontline workers which started two weeks ago, Orban said Hungary had been among the countries carrying out the higest number of tests last week.

He again thanked doctors, nurses and teachers for their work and called on all citizens to adhere to epidemiological regulations.

As we wrote today, fully 116 Covid patients, mostly elderly and suffering from an underlying illness, died over the past 24 hours in Hungary, while 3,870 infections were registered, bringing the total over the course of the pandemic to 254,148, read more details HERE.

Restrictions in Hungary

Between 9am and 11am on weekdays and 8am and 10am on weekends, customers below that age are banned from shopping in grocery shops, household chemists and pharmacies. Senior citizens have the right to shop at any time.