Economy 17 April 2020, 12:04pm

COVID-19: Hungary's mortality rate stands out in CEE region

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As we highlight almost every day, the fatality rate of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is very high in Hungary in regional comparison. It is only a tad below 9%, which suggests that Hungary has an extremely low efficiency at diagnosing those infected. Such high mortality rates occur in countries where the health care system is overloaded due to the pandemic. This is what the map below shows.

As you can see, the mortality rate is between 1% and 4% in Central and Eastern Europe. Hungary's index is close to 9%, and even the next highest in Romania (5.1%) and Bulgaria (4.8%) are we well below this figure.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 infections in Hungary rose to 1,763, the official government website said Friday morning. The virus claimed the lives of 14 elderly people, bringing the total death toll to 156, while 207 people have recovered and have been discharged from hospital. At present, 847 coronavirus patients are being treated in hospital and 63 are on ventilators.

Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said earlier this week that over the last week 26 aircraft delivered 13.207 million masks, 6.203 million protective gear, 155,000 tests and 101 respirators to Hungary. He underlined that Hungary has signed contracts for over 148.7 million masks, 46.855 million of which are already in the country. It also has contracts for 3.305 million tests, of which about 352,000 have arrived, and of the contracted 47.754 million personal protective equipment (PPE) authorities have collected 20.292 million, he added. He announced on Thursday that over the last 24 hours Hungary has received 1.5 million personal protective gear, 100,000 gloves, 50,000 tests and 200 respirators.

Since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak Hungary has run 41,590 tests, which translates into 4,305 tests per a population of one million. The comparative figures are 18,078 in Austria, 4,910 in Croatia, 14,409 in the Czech Republic, 20,629 in Germany, 4,467 in Poland, 4,139 in Romania, 6,311 in Slovakia, 18,344 in Slovenia and 979 in Ukraine. (Data source: worldometers.info)

Romania had almost 500 new cases yesterday and cranked up testing to 4,800 per day. Austria's Minister of Health announced on Thursday that every resident and staff in nursing homes must be tested, which will affect nearly 130,000 people in 918 institutions.

About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS.

Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE), The Guardian reported.

The pandemic has admittedly affected 12 nursing homes in Hungary, one of which (in the 17th district, on Pesti út) has been hit particularly hard. It has over 200 confirmed cases and COVID-19 claimed the lives of 18 residents there. There is a higher number of infections in two other care homes. If an elderly person is hospitalised as a confirmed COVID-19 case, he/she can be transferred back to the nursing home even without a negative test. In that case, it is the institution's duty to isolate this resident, the country's Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller told an online press briefing today. She earlier said that such isolation (in regular homes) requires a separate room, a separate bathroom and a separate kitchenette. An official of the 18th district local government cited information by over 30 nursing home managers when saying that these institutions cannot guarantee the isolation requirements if they have more than a handful of suspected COVID-19 cases.

Hungary is apparently not so keen on testing. Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller has repeatedly said testing will not stop the spread of coronavirus, and that testing is not a substitute for quarantine measures. She keeps emphasising that even if your test comes back negative, you can still be a carrier of COVID-19 and you should remain indoors for 14 days.

COVID-19 patients and their relatives keep publishing stories on social media that get picked up by the press about the extreme difficulties of getting tested. The official argument in each of these cases is that Hungarian authorities operate in line with WHO standards and regulations. In practice, however, this means that if you're not symptomatic, you can forget about getting tested in the public health care system.

Here are just a few examples: A five-month-old infant was tested positive for COVID-19, but authorities refuse to test the parents or those that they were in contact with during the estimated incubation period.

48-year-old Hungarian physicist Örs Legaza run a fever after attending a conference in Austria. His GP ordered a COVID-19 test for him again and again, but it took authorities one week to have him tested. They refused his request to test his wife and four children, as well. His test came back positive. When his symptoms turned severe, his GP referred him to the Szent László Hospital where he was examined and sent home. The next day he felt even worse and was rushed back to the hospital where they diagnosed him with bilateral pneumonia. He was oxygenised and treated with various drugs. His tests results have improved since then but he is still in the hospital and his COVID-19 tests continue to come back positive.

If you get sick and do not get tested, you cannot be examined in the basic health care system because of the lack of protective equipment. And you cannot go to the dedicated hospitals either because you are not a confirmed COVID-19 case. And the vicious circle is closed. We might be slated to die in our own homes.

Let’s see a few figures from Iceland. As of today, it has 1,739 confirmed infections, 587 patients in isolation, 35 hospitalised, 6 in intensive care, 1,800 in quarantine (17,093 completed).

1,144 COVID-19 patients have recovered and of those diagnosed with the infection 8 have died! This is a tenth of that of France, for instance.

And here’s the really staggering data: Iceland had 38,204 tests taken which translates into 111,995 tests per one million inhabitants, per capita more than any other country in the world. Is there a link between the number of tests and the number of infections and deaths? Experts have said comprehensive testing is key to controlling coronavirus, and creating a more accurate picture of the spread of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has infected nearly 2.2 million people and killed over 147,500. This island-nation of 364,000 is doing just that.

Cover photo: JHU, active COVID-19 case numbers