Chief infectologist: Unvaccinated elderly hospitalised most

“Half of those without vaccines read and spread misconceptions about the vaccine being harmful,” and are impossible to convince otherwise, Janos Szlavik told on public news channel M1. Groups trying to reach elderly citizens typically living alone in rural areas “are working to reach the other 50 percent”, he said. Incentives like an immunity requirement to acces certain services may help that work, he said.

Barring an effective medicine against Covid-19, “which needs at least two years to develop and so will be available next year at the earliest”, vaccines are the only effective way to combat the pandemic, Szlavik said, and called on parents to have their children inoculated to stop the spread of the virus.

Szlavik warned that the delta variant was much more infectuous than previous mutations. While earlier variants spread to 3-4 people from one patient on average, the delta variant may infect as many as 7-8, he said.