Economy 29 March 2021, 9:58am

COVID-19: Hungary death toll over 20,000

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Hungarian authorities diagnosed 7,263 people with coronavirus infection over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 641,124 since the outbreak last spring. 189 people have died of coronavirus-related diseases yesterday, and now the death toll is up at 20,161, the official government portal reported on Monday morning. We would not draw far-reaching conclusions from the lower numbe of new confirmed cases or deaths, though.

koronavírus járvány korona maszk védőruha

The number of new daily confirmed COVID-19 cases yesterday (7,263) was lower than the average of the past seven days and now the trend is also descending, but we must be cautious when it comes to drawing any conclusions from this. Firstly, the lower figure is from a weekend day when most likely fewer people seek medical help even if they have COVID-19 symptoms. Secondly, there was a small break in the trend back in early March and then the epidemic curve started to go up sharply again. If the Wednesday morning report also shows a relatively low number of new cases we might start to hope that the pandemic started to recede.

The number of new COVID-19 deaths was 189, and it was last lower than 200 on 22 March. Of course, we should not draw far-reaching conclusions from this figure, as mortality follows changes in the spread of coronavirus with a delay. Yet, more than 20,000 people have died of coronavirus-related diseases in Hungary since the outbreak in March 2020.

Hungary is the world’s worst in the rolling 7-day average of COVID-19 deaths per one million inhabitants. It is also the second worst in the world in terms of COVID-19 deaths per one million population after the Czech Republic.

The number of people hospitalised due to coronavirus infection jumped by nearly 500, as it was expected in view of the stagnation of the last few days. In the meantime, the number of those on ventilators dropped (by 30). Again, a single number for a weekend day is not enough to draw meaningful conclusions.

Authotiries preformed 42,000 COVID-19 tests, way more than the average of the past seven days, which means the relatively low number of new cases were found in a high number of tests. This implies that the detection rate has improved, i.e. we might have a clearer picture on how the virus is spreading. The positivity rate of 17.1%, however, is still far from the 5% thresehold over which the pandemic is not under control, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Over the past 24 hours, only 16,849 people were vaccinated against COVID-19, which is the lowest daily figure since 16 March. It seems the 67,000 inoculations on 27 March was a fluke. Additionally, only 3,421 people got their second jab. However, the focus of the current vaccination strategy is to give as many people as possible their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, ensuring at least some degree of protection to a wide group of people.

The first goal is to reach 2.5 million vaccinated people and according to a government decree published on Saturday, the current lockdown measures will be eased once this threshold is reached. Not that it would be even close to the absolute minimum level (60%) of herd immunity.