BREAKING! Hungary extends coronavirus restrictions until March 15

The government will maintain the current restrictions introduced due to the coronavirus pandemic until March 15, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office told a weekly press briefing on Thursday.

Gergely Gulyás said that the third wave of the pandemic had hit Hungary and indicators could “worsen even dramatically” in the next one or two weeks.

“The next two weeks will be particularly difficult,” he added.

There are a number of new variants of the virus in the country, spreading faster than earlier ones, Gulyás said, but added that the vaccines currently available ensured protection against each of them.

Gulyás said he hoped that the current lockdown was the last of its kind, in view of the mass inoculation of people now under way. He said that the vaccination process would be accelerated in the next two weeks, with “more people receiving the jabs than the total number inoculated so far”.

The restrictions could be eased in a couple of weeks, he said, adding that the government would make relevant decisions in consideration of the results of a National Consultation survey on the subject.

He also said that the government would define authorisations attached to the vaccination certificates issued to people inoculated and those who have recovered from Covid-19.

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Gulyás: Anti-vaccination opposition ‘risking people’s lives’

Hungarian leftist parties’ opposition to the coronavirus vaccine is not only against the country’s interests but also “risks people’s lives”, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, said on Thursday.

The opposition, “especially [former Prime Minister] Ferenc Gyurcsány and his party, the Democratic Coalition,” failed to support the extension of the pandemic-related special legal order in a parliamentary vote earlier this week, Gergely Gulyás told a weekly press briefing. They also criticised the government’s vaccination action plan, he added.

Gulyás insisted that the only explanation to such course of action was that the opposition “expects they have better chances to obtain power if the pandemic takes longer to subside.”

Gulyás called it “the saddest development in public life in the past few weeks” that “masses” of left-wing mayors have called on people to reject Covid-19 vaccines that have already been tested and approved by Hungarian authorities.

“This is unacceptable, those doing so are toying with people’s lives,” he said.

Source: MTI