President: Let us be grateful for lives saved

President Jaáos Áder, in his New Year’s address, said 2021 should be a year when Hungarians feel grateful for lives saved and “touching moments of helping each other”.

The coronavirus pandemic has left its mark on the New Year holiday, Áder said in his speech televised at midnight.

All festivities departed from tradition due to the pandemic last year, he noted. “This time last year, we wished each other a Happy New Year without a care in the world,” he said. However, the happy confidence of the year’s start gave way to fear and uncertainty in a matter of weeks, he said.

“Hardly anyone has been left untouched by the epidemic,” he said.

Everyone is yearning to return to a life “with the gifts, freedoms and possibilities we all took for granted”.

Áder praised the “heroic” work of health-care staff, “making life-saving decisions even now, in the first hours of the new year.”

“Can we ever repay them? Is it even possible to make up for this never-ending shift?”

Áder called on Hungarians to be grateful for the work and perseverance of health-care and social services workers, to scientists for “helping us to get to know this hitherto unknown enemy, and for working on the vaccine.”