COVID-19 in Hungary: 6,494 new cases, 158 fatalities on Monday
When interpreting today’s data, two things should be kept in mind:
- Yesterday’s new case number was inexplicably low. Although the government website has not commented, it is nearly certain that the data was erroneous.
- Today’s figure is very high for a Tuesday, a day when Sunday’s fewer test results are typically collated.
Considering the above, we can say that authorities probably made up for yesterday’s error in today’s data. To support this theory, the trend of the pandemic curve is on the rise again. Based on the seven-day average, the third wave has effectively reached the second wave’s early December peak.
Today’s numbers are the last from before the lockdown, showing the weekend situation. Starting from tomorrow, we will see data relevant to this week, although new cases detected in coming days will probably be from infections before Monday. The first actual effects of the tighter measures will not be seen until this weekend at the earliest.
The number of severe cases paints an even gloomier picture as the number of coronavirus patients in hospital has reached a new high at 8,270. The number of people receiving artificial ventilation is also rising steeply and now stands at 833, nearing the psychological barrier of 1,000 mentioned earlier by university professor Béla Merkely as the upper limit of hospital capacities. (“Hungary’s health care system could cope with about 1,000 people on ventilators, but not for sustained periods of time,” the head of Semmelweis Medical University said in December.)
There were 158 coronavirus-related deaths in the past 24 hours, the highest daily fatality count during the third wave. Unfortunately, the pandemic curve and the number of people in hospital indicate that this figure will keep rising in coming weeks.
Officially, 38% of coronavirus tests applied came back positive, which is an extremely high ratio and would signal substantial under-detection of infections, but it is fortunately false data. As mentioned above, authorities probably booked some of yesterday’s cases for today. The already low number of tests reported on Tuesday (from Sunday) increases the ratio further.
The question now is whether Monday’s incomplete data has now been reported in full or will be added in further parts. Looking at the number of new cases and the positivity rate and comparing these to previous days, we can hazard the guess that at least the majority of Monday’s cases have now been included in the statistics.
Meanwhile, vaccination has continued in Hungary, at a rate comparable to preceding days. Some 10.7% of the population has ow received the first dose of the vaccine and 3.2% got the second shot as well.
Cover photo: Getty Images
