Restaurants, hotels to fully reopen in a week?

At their meeting on Wednesday, the government must have addressed the current state of the vaccination plan and the future steps, meaning the reopening of restaurants’ terraces, which is expected this week, once we reach 3.5 million vaccinations, and then on April 29, we can expect to reach 4 million.

According to the latest calculations of Portfolio, on April 23, we might be able to reach 3.5 million vaccinated people in Hungary, so the gardens and terraces can reopen from Saturday, and then on April 29, we may reach 4 million vaccinated people. The decision-makers are reportedly thinking about the greater easing of restrictions.

By 7 May, the number of people who have been vaccinated may reach the number of those who have registered. The government will then seek to create a positive effect with the rights associated with the vaccination card and the vaccination campaign.

A number of important announcements were made on Wednesday. Firstly, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó spoke about the expected delivery of 1.4 million doses of vaccine in the next week and a half, as well as the leaked plans for the use of vaccines from 26 April to 30 April and 20 May 2021.

As a significant proportion of recent vaccine shipments are for second-round vaccinations, they alone do not increase the number of first vaccinations on which the government counts for the next phases of the reopening. Therefore, we disaggregated all this and refined the expected vaccination path for the next few weeks based on the supply available for the first vaccinations.

For example, the question may arise as to whether the government will continue to insist on registration or they will let it go. By May 7th, only 51-52% of the total Hungarian society is expected to be vaccinated (60% of the 7.85 million adult population), so the further reopening schedule will depend on how many will be willing to vaccinate themselves, not the available vaccine supply.

Sooner or later, there will be more vaccines available than people who are willing to be vaccinated on the condition of registration.

At its meeting on Wednesday the decision-makers also most likely discussed the vaccination certificates issued after the first vaccination (or after confirmed, fought-off infection).

This can make vaccination registration more tempting with its additional privileges, as well as a strong government campaign that signals to people that soon it will be their turn (since there might be a fair portion of people who did not register because they thought that they were in no hurry).

The CSO vaccination survey also shows that the number of people who will or might vaccinate is at around 6 million, so the government will certainly work to ensure that the number of people actually vaccinated reaches this as soon as possible (theoretically, by 16 May, this quantity of vaccines could be available).

However, experts emphasise that truly secure (and complete) economic opening could only take place when at least 75-80% of the society has been vaccinated, which equals at least 7.3 million people at the moment.

Source: portfolio.hu