Economy 6 November 2020, 3:35pm

Hungarian minister Kásler addresses coronavirus pandemic

Portfolio

While Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's cabinet has so far refrained from imposing strict lockdown measures, Hungary's Minister of Human Capacities ensured on Friday that the steps taken to manage the coronavirus situation were decisive and flexible and compliance will be checked more rigorously.

[...] the number of people infected with coronavirus doubles ever 11 to 12 days, and the same applies to those ending up in hospital and in the ICU

, said Miklós Kásler in a video published on his ministry's YouTube channel.

He added that currently the cabinet can plan ahead for two or two and a half weeks because the nature of the epidemic has changed. In the spring, they could still plan ahead for three weeks.

He added that it also takes a longer time for the measures to exert their impact. "If tighter measures are introduced, their results can be enjoyed in four to six weeks."

The minister noted that in the spring outbreak coronavirus was brought in to Hungary by a couple of people from abroad. If they isolated the virus carrier and their contacts were checked the spread of the virus was often thwarted, he said. The next stage was the occurance of hotspots within certain communities, e.g. in nursing homes. In the current stage of the epidemic, coronavirus spreads in communities, which means that anyone could be infected and spreading the virus without being aware of it.

For the first time since the coronavirus outbreak in the spring, more than 100 COVID-19 patients died yesterday over a 24-hour period. This, however, was not the only milestone in the epidemic. Over the last few hours several reports have seen daylight in which health care staff working in the front lines warned that the health care system operates under extreme pressure and is starting to be saturated.

While the number of daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases has been rising exponentially, the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals has also been growing and was close to 5,500 by Friday morning. Note that only two weeks ago there were about 2,000 patients in hospital. Medical staff is large enough to simultaneously take care of about 2,000 patients in intensive care units, and ICUs are getting close to their maximum capacity. Not to mention that staffs are also shrinking as doctors and nurses also fall ill. According to reports, paramedics take COVID-19 patients already to the fourth alternative care facilities.

This is why elective procedures are being put on hold.