Economy 22 November 2021, 4:20pm

Vaccinations rev up in Hungary on first day of one-week campaign

Portfolio

The one-week vaccination campaign where Hungarians may ask first, second and third doses of various COVID-19 vaccines has started successfully, with more than 51,000 doses administered across the country, a government official told public media on Monday.

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István György, in charge of regional public administration at the Prime Minister's Office, said 42,000 of these were third doses, 7,000 first and the rest (2,000) second doses.

The COVID-19 vaccines of five manufacturers are used: AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Janssen and Sinopharm.

The cc. 7,000 first doses is several times as many as on the days of the past 1.5 to 2 months, the state secretary said.

Hospitals were asked to open new vaccination locations to avoid long queues. There are currently 101 such locations open between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. until Sunday. No prior registration is required.

Click on the topmost link below for Portfolio's latest analysis of the importance and current situation of third doses.

There is no real progress in the vaccination campaign. People that have been fully vaccinated in the basic protocol do seek third doses, but even that growth rate needs to be higher, while those that have refused to get their shots are not changing their minds en masse despite the worsening epidemiological situation. And there's also the issue of the waning effectiveness of vaccines to consider...

The cabinet announced a one-week vaccination campaign where people can get their first, second or third jab without prior online registration. What we cannot understand, and what has not been explained by anyone so far, is why the the campaign was set to start today (22 Nov), TWO AND A HALF WEEKS after the decision was made. This might just give the well-needed boost to the vaccination rate.