Economy 9 September 2021, 9:02am

COVID-19: Hungary records 345 new cases, 3 deaths

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Hungarian authorities diagnosed 345 people with COVID-19 and 3 people died of coronavirus-related diseases over the past 24 hours, the official government portal reported on Thursday morning. The number of people with SARS-CoV-2 in hospitals went up to 215, a nealry three-month high, with 26 of them requiring mechanical ventilation. The rolling 3-day average positivity rate rose to over 2.34%.

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The number of new confirmed daily COVID-19 cases (345) has not been this high since 29 May (350). The ascending trend is clear.

We need to highlight that the focus needs to be on the number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals and on ventilators, rather than on how many new cases are found and how much the number of infections has grown over the past five or seven days.

While there are fewer cases than a year ago, the number of people in hospital and on ventilator should not be half of the base figures, yet that is not the case.

There are 215 people with coronavirus infection in hospital, versus 221 a year go. There are 26 of them on ventilator, versus 13 a year ago. That's alarming. With the vaccines and cross-immunity these numbers should not be this high. There were 700-800 people with COVID-19 in hospital at the end of September last year. Theoretically, there should be half or even less this year, while the trend suggests that the halfway mark will be hit early next week. They may say that this is because we are two weeks 'ahead' now, as the number of cases started to rise that much later, but it's not true. The starting point was higher, but the increases started later. For another two to three weeks we can argue that this is merely beause the 'waves' started at different times, but then it will be clear that something has gone awry.

The chart below shows the 7-day rolling averages of COVID-19 patients in hospitals as a percentage of active cases. This is somewhat distorted. The recording of active cases does not keep track of the actual number of people with COVID-19, and there were drastic reclassification from active status to recovered. By now, however, there are practically no more people with 'old' active status to reclassify. This is showing in the numbers and will also lead to a sharp rise in active cases. The other curve shows those on ventilators as a percentage of those in hospitals. This rate has been hovering in range between 14% and 16% for a month, then it started to drop in late August, but now the index is up at 12.1%.

The following charts show how the changes of the key hospitalisation figures (l-h) and how the changes have been changing (r-h).

The four charts below show the absolute number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals and on ventilators (top two) as well as two ratios (COVID-19 cases in hospital / Active cases, and COVID-19 cases on ventilator / Cases in hospital, bottom two.) The left-hand charts depict a longer period (15 June - 8 Sept), while the right-hand ones show changes over a shorter period (25 July - 8 Sept).

The ascending trend is crystal clear as regards the number of people in hospital and on ventilator. Sharp increases all over the place.

The charts below show that the the percentage of those requiring artificial ventilation of those that are in hospital with COVID-19 dropped some. It is because these are newly admitted patients, i.e. fewer of them need mechanical ventilation. It is also on the (r-h) chart, though, that the On ventilator / In hospital ratio is rising faster than the In hospital / Active cases ratio (they are in more severe condition.

Overall, the number of new patients in more severe condition has been rising sharply, and so has the hospitalisation of active cases, and there's an even more dramatic rise in ICU cases, which would eventually lead to more people on ventilators and more deaths than a year ago.

Hungarian authorities performed about 13,000 COVID-19 tests over the past 24 hours. The positivity rate went up to 2.61% from 2,28%, and the 3-day average is up at 2.34% from 2.2%. The 3-day/21-day ratio is up at 137%, but the 7-day average of the 3d/21d ratio fell to 136% from 140%.

About 4,400 people got their 1st and less than 5,200 their 2nd dose of a COVID-19 vaccine over the past 24 hours (9,570 shots in total). 461,000 people have asked for and received a third dose. For the sake of comparison: this many doses have been administered in total (1st and 2nd doses) in Hungary since 21 July. Amazing, huh? Or more like...dramatic.