Coronavirus – Budapest Mayor proposes package to reopen Budapest

Mayor Gergely Karácsony has completed a package dubbed Budapest Restart containing proposals for the government and planned municipal decisions.

Karácsony summed up in a Facebook entry on Wednesday “what the government and the municipality should do, what lessons international examples can offer and in what areas we should be extremely careful”.

According to the mayor’s summary, the government should go on with mass testing, and publish all data. People with the slightest symptoms connected to Covid-19 should be allowed to go on paid leave, and patients should only be transferred to another hospital or released from the facility if they test negative. Karácsony also suggested that

working hours and school classes should start at different times to ease overcrowding.

As for the municipal council, Karácsony called for further coronavirus screening and pledged transparency of data. He also said that further public spaces should be turned over to pedestrians and cyclists, with continued public transport developments and the introduction of digital devices to avoid crowds.

• All serious COVID-19 cases to be transported to Budapest

The mayor said that

plannning for restarting activities in the city “must not create the illusion that the epidemic is over” and warned that “what is ahead of us will probably be war”.

He said that Budapest should be reopened in a way that it can respond to any possible recurrence of the novel virus.

Karácsony said that an earlier routine of life can only be restored if the number of new Covid-19 cases stabilises at a low level; if mass testing is continuous and data are public; if there are enough reserves in health care and nobody is left without necessary services, and if residents continue wearing face masks and observe social distancing rules.

• Mayor requests Budapest infection stats from chief medical officer

Police launch investigation into elderly care home

The National Bureau of Investigation has launched an investigation into developments at an elderly care home in Pesti Road in eastern Budapest, police said on Tuesday.

Police said

the investigation was against an unknown perpetrator for jeopardising residents but declined to reveal further details.

Earlier in the day, Cecília Müller, the chief medical officer, reported that so far 42 residents of the facility have died of Covid-19 and 305 tested positive.

Source: MTI