Economy 28 January 2021, 9:18am

COVID-19 in Hungary: 1,569 new cases on Wednesday

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Hungarian authorities confirmed 1,569 new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases yesterday, increasing the total since last March to 363,450. The death toll rose to 12,291 after 93, mostly elderly or chronic, patients succumbed to the disease yesterday. The number of active cases is down to 102,156. There are currently 3,669 coronavirus patients in hospital, with 255 of them on ventilators. A total of 161,215 people have been vaccinated so far, and 26,293 have already received their second shots.

The 1,569 new cases can be considered high compared to recent days and is the highest daily figure since 14 January. However, there are often jumps of similar magnitude in daily case numbers, and it should be kept in mind that the number of actual infections is much higher and it only depends on testing how many of these are detected each day.

The number of fatalities was again relatively high, 93, yesterday. While showing peaks and troughs, the trend is fortunately a slow but gradual decline, although we should still expect daily fatalities to remain around 100 in coming days.

The number of people treated in hospital decreased by 140 yesterday, while the number of people receiving artificial ventilation remained unchanged. The latter figure has plateaued about a week ago and will hopefully begin to decrease soon.

Authorities applied 13,093 tests in the past 24 hours, slightly less than the average of the preceding week. The positivity rate rose to more than 10% for the first time in 10 days.

Vaccination coverage is increasing very slowly, with just 8,500 people receiving the vaccine yesterday. At present, 1.65% of Hungary’s population has been vaccinated and only 0.27% have received both shots. Estimated immunity in Hungary is just above 5% including people who have recovered from the disease in the past six months.