Economy 2 November 2020, 8:49am

COVID-19: Daily deaths at record high in Hungary

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Hungarian authorities diagnosed 3,581 new coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 82,780. 70 COVID-19 patients have died, which is a sad new record. The death toll is up at 1,889, while 20,476 coronavirus patients have recovered officially. The number of active cases rose to 60,415 from 57,302 a day earlier. Budapest accounts for 25% of active cases, 32% of the deceased and 28% of recovered patients. There are currently 4,417 COVID-19 patients in hospital, with 313 of them on ventilators.

The number of daily confirmed new COVID-19 cases grew by 3,581 yesterday, and 70 patients have succumbed to the disease, the official government portal reported on Monday morning. The number of new daily cases is the third highest on record since the coronavirus outbreak in the spring.

The number of fatalities per day has never been higher and the trend suggests that this is by far not the worst we'll see.

There are more and COVID-19 patients in hospital and on ventilators too. The 4,417 hospitalised patients marks a growth of 212 over the previous day and 7 more people (313) are now on ventilators. Both are record high numbers.

In a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus the Hungarian government has introduced stricter mask-wearing regulations and larger fines for non-compliance. It stands out in Europe where nations - although trying to avoid the economy going into total shutdown - keep implementing increasingly rigourous measures to curb the spread of the virus.

Germany has ordered a shutdown from Monday of restaurants, bars and most public entertainment. Schools, daycare centres, hair salons and retailers will remain open. France has closed bars and restaurants, as well as imposing travel restrictions and shutting is frontiers to non-EU travellers.

Greece on Friday imposed lockdowns in Thessaloniki, its second-largest city, and two other regions.

Belgium late on Friday imposed measures similar to its spring lockdown , closing non-essential stores, further limiting social contacts and making home working compulsory.

Spain has imposed a nationwide night time curfew and almost all of its regions have implemented regional border closures to prevent long-distance travel.

Italy announced a 6 p.m. curfew for the country’s restaurants and bars.

England is to put in place strict measures from Thursday. Pubs, restaurants, gyms, non-essential shops and places of worship will close, but schools, colleges and universities can stay open.

The Czech government ordered most shops to close and tightened restrictions to curb the virus’s spread.

2.58 million people, nearly half of Slovakia’s entire population took COVID-19 swabs on Saturday, the first day of a two-day nationwide testing drive the cabinet hopes will help reverse a surge in infections without a hard lockdown. The testing was free and voluntary, but the government has said it will impose a lockdown on those who do not participate, including a ban on going to work. Those that tested positive (25,058 or 1%) had to go into quarantine.

Hungarian authorities performed 13,600 tests over the last 24 hours, which marks a decline from over 15,000 in the previous days. The ratio of tests that came back positive was the highest yet at 26% (!) which indicates that the epidemic is spreading rapidly and uncontrollably.

As for the regional breakdown, infections are transmitted at a high rate all over the country. There are still odd things happening in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county where the number of COVID-19 case jumped by 1,600 close to 6,500 on Saturday and dropped by 1,100 on Sunday. It did happen several times before that when authorities learned about patients' actual residence they moved them from one county registry to another, but this kind of statistical anomaly has never been seen before.