Government blames Budapest mayor for ‘lack of preparations for epidemic’ in senior services

Whereas the government had taken measures prior to the coronavirus epidemic to protect seniors, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony “failed to prepare municipal senior services”, the spokesman of the Government Information Centre said on public broadcaster M1 on Monday.

Örs Farkas insisted that

an elderly care home on eastern Budapest’s Pesti Road had become a centre of infection and suggested that “soon all municipally-run homes will become one”.

He argued that ten percent of the 4,000 residents of such homes had tested positive for coronavirus, adding that the ratio was lower in homes outside the scope of the Budapest municipality.

Budapest’s senior institutions “had not been prepared to handle such a situation”, Farkas said and referred to a “lack of medical supervision” as a serious failing.

Meanwhile, the government’s coronavirus portal reported that

the number of senior coronavirus deaths in care homes has reached 100, with 65 in municipal facilities in Budapest.

The portal added that so far 42 residents died in the home on Pesti Road, while 305 residents and 26 employees tested positive for the virus.

According to the portal, a coronavirus outbreak has been reported from 12 seniors’ homes in Budapest, out of which 7 are municipally run.

Fully 471 residents have tested positive in Budapest, 404 of whom are in municipal homes,

and 302 senior residents in homes across the country, the portal said.

• Budapest mayor to turn directly to operative board for infection figures

Source: MTI