Dark day in Hungary: Covid-19 takes toll on a record 207 people in one day

Fully 207 generally elderly patients with co-morbidities died over the past 24 hours, while 6,502 new infections were registered, koronavirus.gov.hu said on Thursday.

Altogether 1,441,706 people have been vaccinated in Hungary, 421,915 of whom have received a second shot, the portal said.

The number of active infections has risen to 160,557, while hospitals are caring for 10,386 Covid patients,

1,170 of whom need respiratory assistance.

Altogether 47,116 people are in official home quarantine, and the number of tests stands at 4,162,688.

Ever since the first outbreak, 539,080 infections have been registered, while fatalities have risen to 17,628. Fully 360,895 people have made a recovery.

So far, most infections have been registered in Budapest (102,987) and Pest County (73,854), followed by the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron (30,909), Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén (30,249) and Hajdú-Bihar (29,194). Tolna County has the fewest infections (11,787).

Hungarian government to issue immunity certificates irrespective of vaccine type

Hungarian authorities will issue the European immunity certificate to all Hungarian citizens inoculated with any type of the vaccines licenced for use in the country, the government’s communications centre (KTK) said in a statement on Wednesday.

In response to the EU’s preparations to roll out a uniform certificate across the community, KTK said that “right now the vaccine is more necessary than a passport” and insisted that the vaccination rate was low in Europe because

“Brussels has blundered” with the centralised vaccine purchases.

“Brussels bureaucracy is busy waging a vaccine war rather than focusing on supplies, while tens of thousands of people die each day,” the statement said. In its statement, the government centre also pledged to inoculate all registered Hungarians “thanks to the vaccines procured from multiple sources”.