COVID-19: Daily deaths reach new record in Hungary

The volatility of Hungary's official COVID-19 statistics just does not want to go away. There were officially 3,456 new confirmed cases yesterday, which is the lowest number since 8 March. The release contains test results for 15 March which was a national holiday, but this is not really a good explanation. We should wait for the statistics for the following days to see more clearly about the spread of the virus. Up to date, there were 532,578 COVID-19 infections in Hungary.

195 people have died of coronavirus-related diseases over the past 24 hours, which is a new record that takes the death toll to 17,421.

There are 10,284 people with coronavirus infection in hospitals, with 1,167 of them on ventilators. Both numbers are the highest we've seen so far in the pandemic and show that the situation is a lot more serious than in the autumn. There are nearly twice as many people on ventilators already. Although the cabinet keeps boasting about the high number of ventilators (last spring it bought 16,000 in a hurry for EUR 842 million), there's simply not enough medical staff qualified to treat coronavirus patients in intensive care units and on ventilators. Their number was estimated around 2,000 in September 2020.

Another factor that could bring the end of ventilating capacities closer is that more and more young people are hospitalised due to severe COVID-19 symptoms and if they are hooked up to ventilators, they are likely to stay on them longer than old(er) people or those with chronic diseases do. In other words, a young body likely combats the virus longer and so ventilator capacities are tied up for a longer period.

The Official Hungarian Gazette published on 10 March showed the government decided to sell ventilators in excess of the strategic stock.

A total of 1,397,342 people have been inoculated against COVID-19, and 406,746 of them got their second jab, as well.

This means 14.3% of the population have been vaccinted with the first and 4.2% with the second shot.

The positivity rate remains extremely high at 25.3%, which compares with a seven-day average of 24.2%.

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