Over 3,500 Covid patients have died since the appearance of coronavirus in Hungary
Fully 96 Covid patients, mostly elderly and suffering from an underlying illness, have died in the past 24 hours and coronavirus infections have risen by 4,440 to 165,901, koronavirus.gov.hu said on Friday.
Altogether 3,568 Covid patients have died since the appearance of coronavirus in Hungary, while 38,074 have made a recovery. There are currently 124,259 active infections and 7,512 patients are in hospital, 604 on ventilators.
Fully 42,241 people are in official home quarantine, while the number of tests stands at 1,455,868.
Hungary is set to begin testing certain essential workers for coronavirus on a regular basis from Friday, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office has said, adding that the staff of social care homes will be the first to be tested.
The government last week decided that health-care workers, teachers and staff members of social institutions will be tested on a regular basis, determined by the operative board responsible for handling the epidemic, Gulyás told a regular press briefing on Thursday.
Testing will be voluntary, he added, emphasising that no one would be obliged to take the test.
Regarding the coronavirus vaccine, Gulyás said Hungary has contracted altogether 12 million doses, costing 36 billion forints (EUR 99.6m), from three manufacturers.
Fully 3,270,000 doses are contracted from British AstraZeneca, 4,360,000 doses from US company Janssen and 4,439,000 doses from Pfizer in addition to potential Chinese and Russian vaccine purchases now under negotiation, he said.
The government has a duty to procure any vaccine that has been duly tested and proven to be effective as quickly as possible, and so it is in talks with “every entity” potentially able to provide it, including the EU, Israel, the US, China and Russia, he said.