Economy 29 April 2021, 9:05am

Epidemiologist warns Hungarians are reckless in pandemic

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The masses of Hungarians that flocked to re-opened terraces of restaurants and pubs over the weekend are evidence that the general public does not behave responsibly enough, said epdiemiologist Prof. Dr. István Kiss, Head of Department, Institute of Public Health Medicine at the University of Pécs. He believes that the share of the population vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 does not warrant such a gung-ho attitude, either. He told commercial broadcaster ATV late on Wednesday that even if a fourth wave in the coronavirus pandemic hits, it will not be as large as the current one.

Kiss thinks the third wave in the pandemic is coming to an end and we are already in a descending phase. The decline started earlier, as a result of lockdown measures and the rising number of vaccinations gave the process another boost, he said.

The question is whether or not there will be a fourth wave. Kiss said he is pessimistic in this regard, as Hungarians showed over the weekend that they do not act responsibly. When terraces were re-opened every condition 'required' for the next wave to start was met. This was a slap in the face of all the lockdown we had, he said. Kiss does not think that the vaccination rate warrants such a high optimism, either. Yet, he stressed that if a fourth wave hit it would not be as large as the third.

the epidemiologist thinks that a new variant such as the indian variant could trigger a fourth wave also in hungary.

The new variant, called B.1.617, was initially detected in India with two mutations -- the E484Q (present in the variants first detected in South Africa and Brazil (that mutation is called E484K)) and L452R (also present in the dominant strain in California). Both mutations are known to decrease -- although not completely eliminate -- the binding of the antibodies created by infection and vaccination. In fact, B.1.617 has two "famous" mutations. But it also has about 11 other ones as well.

“Mutations at sites E484 and L452 have been observed separately, but this is the first major viral lineage that combines the two," said Bloom. Preliminary evidence suggests that B1.617 is more contagious than previous strains of the virus.

Kiss warns that our optimism should be coupled with vigilance, and that we should be prepared that if studies prove vaccines are not effective enough against B1.617 then we'll have to start the whole defence from scratch, like at the beginning of every new wave.

Kiss finds it possible that we'll have to protect against coronavirus for as long as we live. But even if that happens it should be like in the case of the influenza when a vaccine is developed for a new strain and people get inoculated to be protected from that current variant.

Even if SARS-CoV-2 does not get eradicated, it will be tamed and stay with us while causing minor symptoms, he thinks. Just like so many other coronaviruses that people have not even heard of, he added.

Kiss stated that the herd immunity threshold depends on the specific disease and variant, stressing that with the UK variant (B.1.1.7) being the dominant in Hungary, the country needs at least 7 to 8 million people (i.e. 70 to 80% of the population) to have immunity via vaccination or infection to stop the spread of the virus.