Early re-opening can bring on fourth wave in pandemic - Svéd
Svéd said Hungary's progress with its vaccination programme is laudable, but more people need to be inoculated against SARS-CoV-2 to get our previous life back.
He fears that the early re-opening of the economy could bring about the 'fourth wave' in the coronavirus pandemic.
We're putting the cart before the horse again. Re-opening is not going as we would consider it appropriate. In order for health care to catch its breath re-opening should have come later
, he said.
He admitted that thanks to the high vaccination rate and the favourable impact of lockdown measures the number of COVID-19 patients in ICUs and on ventilators in hospitals in Budapest did decline. Such changes started also elsewhere in the country, he said, but warned that
a premature easing of restrictions can make the situation worse.
Svéd underlined that the first jab does not create full immunity, and even the second dose does not ensure 100% immunity against COVID-19.
He has noted that various coronavirus mutations can change the situation in an instant, adding that
even if the pandemic magically disappeared and every COVID-19 patient recovered, it would still not mean that health care workers could relax
, because they would immediately have to take care of the unbelievable number of patients that were neglected due to the pandemic. There are chronic patients that have not received their necessary treatment for a year, and new patients who have not yet been diagnosed.
If their treatment cannot be started within the foreseeable future, the number of the collateral victims of COVID-19 could remain scarily high for many years to come, said Svéd.
Addressing Hungary's No.1 position in the world in terms of COVID-19 deaths per one million people, Svéd reminded that the state of health of the Hungarian population is bad: the obesity rate is high (over 26%), many people suffer from cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and respiratory problems are also frequent. These are all risk factors when it comes to coronavirus.
Svéd also stressed that the health care system was generally unprepared for the pandemic, particularly because the system of epidemiological surveillance, organisation and defence was dismantled over the last few years.
He also noted that one of the greatest flaws of how the pandemic is managed in Hungary is the lack of transparency and the lack of wide data dissemination.
The news do not find their way to people living in penury and they often do not go to hospital even with severe symptoms and they eventually die at home, he added.
When asked how the health care system will come out of this pandemic, he replied: "battered".
Cover photo: ICU nurses treat a patient in the COVID-19 Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Therapy Unit at the Dr. László Elek Hospital on 23 April 2021. Source: MTI/Tibor Rosta
