PM Orbán: “Nobody can get away” from the virus
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday called on Hungarians to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, adding that it is a matter of individual responsibility and protection, and that vaccination saves lives.
Orbán told public Kossuth Radio that more than 3.145 million Hungarians have received their first jab and over 1.3 million received both. He added that on Thursday, 241 mostly elderly people died as a result of the epidemic, the number of people in hospital dropped under 10,000 to 9,459 and there were 1,117 on ventilator.
He said that 27 of the nearly 10,000 people in hospital were children aged under 14 and 2 of them were on ventilator.
Regarding the reopening of schools, Orbán said the issue divided the public because “parents always worry about their children the most”.
The decision to reopen kindergartens and grades 1-4 of elementary schools from April 19 was informed by the fact that the number of children in creches jumped in the past ten days, and the fact that the armed forces concluded disinfecting schools. Also, parents who want to continue to homeschool their children can turn to the school principals, he said. The decision whether they accept that as justified absence is in the principals’ hands, he added.
Orbán called on teachers to “help restart the country” while recognising that restarting in-person education will not be easy.
He noted that fewer teachers have registered for the vaccine than was hoped for, but all those registered have been vaccinated.
A total of 4.219 million people have registered for vaccination so far, he added.
Orbán noted a “misleading notion” that once 60-70 percent of Hungarians get vaccinated, the rest will not need the vaccine.
“Nobody can get away” from the virus, he said, adding that only vaccination could give individuals protection and he described it as a life-saver.
He said the next six weeks will be decisive in the epidemic, adding that Hungary could double the number of people inoculated and it will therefore “rise above the surface” by the end of May or early June.
Orbán said some 500,000 vaccines manufactured by Jonhsson and Jonhsson will have to be replaced, mainly with the Chinese Sinopharm. The Janssen vaccine will be examined in Hungary separately, “an unusual step as we so far accepted Western certificates and only examined Eastern vaccines.”
He slammed the opposition as the “only left-wing I have seen that pursues politics … directly leading to crisis and aims to draw out the pandemic and prolong the recovery process, and shake people’s belief in the government.”
He called it “devastating” that left-wing parties still have a proposal in parliament on scrapping the use of the Sinopharm vaccine. Had Hungary not used the Chinese vaccine, it would have inoculated about half as many as it has so far, he said.
Orbán said anti-vaccination voices had become louder in the leftist parties because if the government’s inoculation plan was successfully completed in six weeks, Hungary would be among the first three countries in the world to have vanquished the pandemic.
Currently, however, Hungary has to fight simultaneously against the “power-hungry Left” and the “multinational companies’ hunger for profit which shakes trust in the vaccines”, he said.
On reopening restaurant terraces, slated for when Hungary passes the mark of 3.5 million inoculations, Orbán said “we will be getting back a very spectacular part of our former lives.” Fees for use of public places will be scrapped, along with red tape surrounding the permits for terraces, to encourage the hospitality industry to reopen, he said.
The 2022 budget will be the “budget of restarting the economy”, with both the 2021 and the 2022 budgets allocating 5,000 billion forints (EUR 13.9bn) to that goal, he said.
The government will stick to its promise to restart all jobs that have fallen victim to the pandemic, Orbán said. It will do more than that, he said. “We will have more jobs after the pandemic than we had before,” he pledged.
Read alsoSurvey: Majority of Hungarians satisfied with government crisis management
Source: MTI
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4 Comments
“We will have more jobs after the pandemic than we had before,” he pledged.
Well there are 5000 vacancies to fill in healthcare. Perhaps you should be looking at better contracts for them and the existing staff. Stop turning this into a political campaign. We’re not sheep. We take everything you say with a very large pinch of salt.
If the next 6 weeks you Political use spin and propaganda around is VITAL – scrub your idea that from the 19th April you plan to open the country to a larger degree than you have it functioning at present.
1 in every 398 citizen of Hungary are loosing their life to this novel coronavirus.
Sunday this week by Statistical Medical Data, we as a country on population to death ratio – 9.6 million, will be number 1 in the world for loss of lives and its Worsening.
Reports grow the ineffectiveness of the Chinese vaccine “conglomeration” citizens in countries it has been used due to its just 50% per cent success ratio, dangerously low to be termed a “effective vaccine” that citizens are needing receiving a 3rd injection in efforts to build their immunity systems to fight contacting this deadly novel coronavirus.
April 19th – next 6 weeks – keep the country CLOSED or continue the path you are taking us that is sinking daily into an abyss position that recovery or returning to a state of normality is un-likely and leave US in a state of disintegration, split and economically ravaged as a Country.
He also said that after the second vaccination, the Chinese vaccine provides the same or better protection than the other vaccines available in Hungary, it doesn’t matter who gets what vaccine, each is safe and provides protection – Gergely Gulyás emphasized.
This is from the government website. Outrageous claim. Lies. Dangerous. We know from the Chinese that their vaccine only has around 50% efficacy. They are desperate for us to believe everything they say. Stop treating us as fools.
Professor (‘mad dog’) Caritas just cannot help himself.
Having obviously been SACKED from teaching, the only outlet for those muddled ramblings is D.N.H. where he continually LECTURES the democratically-elected Government of Hungary HOW / WHAT / WHEN to perform tasks that ‘pop’ into that confused mind of his.
Oh dear ….
It is about time the poor man was committed into an institution where he can receive long-overdue psychiatric assistance.