COVID-19: Key metrics show fifth wave in retreat in Hungary

Every key metric shows that the fifth wave in the coronavirus pandemic caused by the highly-contagious Omicron variant is subsiding.

In the following you find all kinds of graphs that pretty much speak for themselves.

While the decline in the number of new cases, hospitalisations, and Covid patients needing mechanical ventilation is undoubtedly a welcome change, mortality statistics are dreadful.

As the fifth wave is petering out, so is Hungarians' willingness to get vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.

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Here come the charts:

The table below offers the key metrics of the coronavirus pandemic for the last four weeks, compared with the situation a year ago: new cases, hosplitalisations, number of ventilated Covid patients, and deaths (you need to scroll down for that). If you don't want to compare the data, that's also fine, just look at the numbers and curves and columns for this year alone.

Based on 7-day averages, hospitalisations are dropping at an increasing rate, while the week-on-week growth rate of the 7-day average of the number of Covid patients on ventilator has dropped for the sixth day in a row since this metric started to worsen on 28 January. (Note that the weekend statistics are unreliable and if we want to see "harder" data, we should wait until Wednesday or Thursday. Nevertheless, the trend is clearly positive.)

The number of Covid deaths is still extremely high considering that about 39% of the population received three doses of COVID-19 vaccines and about 63% had two shots, while a year ago only about 100,000 people had been protected by two doses.

The good news is that the 7-day average of Covid deaths has also dropped.

Note that the aggregate number of Covid deaths since 28 August almost match the number a year earlier which is horrific.

If you were wondering how were were doing in terms of coronavirus-related mortality, here are the daily deaths figures and their accumulation for the period between 1 January and 20 February in 2021 and this year.

The trend is still ascending whether we look at the daily death figures or the number of deaths per the number of ventilated coronavirus patients (daily or 7-day averages, it doesn't matter).

Hospitalisation and ventilation stats show improvement however we look at them.

How to read the following chart?
On the two charts below the 0% line is important. When the curves are under 0% there’s a decline, when they go over 0% it’s an increase.

More importantly, when a value is north of 0% but the curve descends, it means an increase at a slowing rate, rather than a decrease. If the curve is above 0% and ascending, it is an increase at an accelerating rate. When we are under 0% and the curve goes lower, it translates into an accelerating decrease, and when it goes up it marks a decelerating decrease.

Testing practices remain unchanged, the important long(er)-term averages and their key ratios continue to drop.

Cover photo: Getty Images