The Budapest Times

DK: Orbán responsible for pandemic fallout hitting employees

Chief medical officer: Indian variant identified in Hungary

Written by BT/MTI
The Covid-19 variant first identified in India has been detected in Hungary, the chief medical officer told a press conference of the operative body responsible for the epidemic protection efforts on Friday. Of the two patients identified with the variant, one has already recovered and the other is being treated in hospital, but does not need a ventilator, Cecilia Muller said.

Neither patient had travelled abroad prior to the infection, and so the source is yet to be determined, she added.

Muller noted that scientific consensus was growing on the vaccines already in circulation being effective against the Indian variant.

Meanwhile, the pandemic continues to subside in the country, she said. The weekly average of new infections last week was 39 percent lower than on the week before, she said. The fall was sharpest in the southern Somogy and Csongrad-Csanad counties, 57 and 53 percent respectively, while Vas county saw a 9 percent increase, she said.

A majority of new infections is registered among the working-age population, Muller said, and urged caution and the observance of protection measures.

Istvan Gyorgy, a state secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office and the head of the working group coordinating the vaccination campaign, said Hungary was one of the countries closest to herd immunity, with 90 percent of those registered, or 52 percent of the whole population, already inoculated.

The high inoculation rate helped Hungary defeat the third wave of the pandemic, but the presence of the Indian variant has raised the spectre of a fourth wave, Gyorgy said.

Meanwhile, Hungary has received 334,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, of which 175,000 will be administered as a first jab. Fully 280,000 AstraZeneca and nearly 70,000 doses of Moderna vaccines will be given as second jabs, he said. The 84,000 one-dose Janssen vaccines will be used on vaccination buses, which have already serviced 24,000 people in remote localities, he said.

DK: Orbán responsible for pandemic fallout hitting employees

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is responsible for the hit employees took in Hungary due to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) said on Friday.

In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio earlier on Friday, Orbán said the pandemic had hit “not only companies but also those of us who, like myself, are wage and salary-earners.”

Klara Dobrev, DK’s prime ministerial candidate for next year’s election, called Orbán’s remark “cynical” and “a prime example of the way the Fidesz elite mocks the honest masses”.

Dobrev accused the government of botching the protection efforts and withholding help from the people, including a wide-spread salary compensation which she said was introduced in all EU countries bar Hungary. “Then the prime minister complains about the hardships that befell him on public radio,” she said.

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