Economy 27 December 2021, 11:59am

COVID-19: Nearly 8,000 new cases, 436 deaths in Hungary over the past four days

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Hungarian authorities diagnosed 7,989 people with SARS-CoV-2 infection, and 436 people died of coronavirus-related diseases between Thursday and Sunday (Dec 23-26), koronavirus.gov.hu reported on Monday. The official government portal said vaccination data will be published only on Tuesday.

Due to the four-day holiday, the data published today should not be used to draw far-reaching conclusions from. Although the continued drop in the number of new daily confirmed COVID-19 cases shows the current 'wave' of the pandemic keeps petering out, the stagnation of the positivity rate does not bode well for the future, and as cases caused by the Omicron variant double every two or three days, a turnaround appears to be inevitable.

Although the key metrics show that the current 'wave' has already peaked, the extremely rapidly spreading Omicron variant may cause dramatic changes within weeks. An increasing number of countries are announcing lockdown measures to help stem the spread of the highly contagious variant, and a subsequent strain on health care systems. Hungary does not plan to tighten restrictions. It bets almost exclusively on vaccinations, while data show a solid reluctance of unvaccinated Hungarians to get their shots.

While it is already a scientific fact that the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against infection wanes over time, and several studies have found that two doses give significantly smaller protection against Omicron than three doses, only about one third of the Hungarian population have been inoculated with three jabs, and about 3.5 million people have not receive a single shot. (Official vaccination data for the long weekend will be released only on Tuesday.)

Let's see a crude example. Let's say every 30th or 50th person infected with Omicron needs to be hospitalised. Let's say there's a single person carrying the Omicron variant and he goes undetected. At the eighth doubling of cases, i.e. about two weeks later there are already 128 people infected with Omicron, and, let's say, three of them are in hospital. Another two weeks pass by: 15,000 cases, 500 in hospital. Another two weeks: 1.5 million cases, 60,000 in hospital. And that's only six weeks, think about it...

About the positivity rate

Several percent positive indicators show that the current 'wave' of the pandemic peaked between 9 and 14 December. When it comes to the test positivity rate the daily figures are not important because they are highly volatile. The longer-term indices peaked between 7 and 10 December. The CFR (case fatality rate, [deaths / confirmed cases] ) hit its lowest on 12 December, and it is likely to rise from then onward, at least until the Omicron variant starts to make a palpable impact.

The 7-day average of the 3-day average / 21-day average ratio dipped under 100% on 9 December, and it is expected to keep dropping until Omicron takes over. There's a lag of less than two weeks between the peak in the 3-d/21-d ratio and a decline in the daily percent positive.

What is particularly odd is that the number of Covid deaths does not track any other indicator; not the number of hosplitalised Covid patients, not the number of ventilated patients, not the number of registered cases. None of these - it's a miracle, folks! Or it's not, but we will have to wait for the Central Statistical Office's (KSH) excess mortality data to find out what happened. Our strong suscpicion is that a lot of deaths are not in the statistics provided by the Coronavirus Task Force, and yet this wave has already been deadlier than the one in the autumn of 2020.

The situation in hospitals

The following charts show changes in two of the key metrics in the pandemic, the number of Covid patients in hospital and on ventilator as well as their relevant ratios.

On the charts below the 0% line is important. When the curves are under 0% there’s a decline, when they go over 0% it’s an increase. The changes show that the situation in terms of hospitalisations started to worsen after 20 August.

More importantly, when a value is north of 0% but the curve descends, it means an increase at a slowing rate, rather than a decrease. If the curve is above 0% and ascending, it is an increase at an accelerating rate. When we are under 0% and the curve goes lower, it translates into an accelerating decrease, and when it goes up it marks a decelerating decrease. These charts also give reason for optimism. All three curves are under the 0% mark and descending, although there was an uptick at active cases.

The ratio of Covid patients on ventilator to those hospitalised has been rising, as the latter number has been dropping at a greater rate than the former. According to today's report, the number of hospitalised Covid patients was down nearly 19% between Sunday and Wednesday and by almost 27% compared to a week ago, while the respective changes in the number of ventilated patients were 11% and 19%.