Hungary’s opposition parties continued to criticise the government over what they called “a collapse” and “failure” of national pandemic protection measures.
The Democratic Coalition (DK) and LMP parties have slammed the government for “a collapse” of the national vaccination drive and “continued unpreparedness” for handling the coronavirus crisis.
Balázs Barkóczi, DK’s spokesman, told an online press conference that “overall confusion” surrounded mass inoculations planned for the weekend with mishaps in the system of calling in people for getting their jabs. “These included cases when people vaccinated already were called again for inoculation or some summoned to vaccination points far away from their homes,” he said, adding that the prime minister had admitted to the failure in his morning radio interview. DK demands an explanation and that the prime minister should name officials responsible for the “chaos”, Barkóczi said.
Máté Kanász-Nagy, LMP’s co-leader, told an online press conference that the only subject the prime minister failed to discuss in his Friday radio interview was “how the country will operate from Monday on”. “The fact that sufficient contact tracing and testing are still not in place show how unprepared the government is to handle the pandemic and the crisis going with it,” he said.
After a meeting of the opposition’s Covid-2021 committee on Friday afternoon, György László Lukács, Jobbik’s deputy leader, said destroying ANTSZ, the top epidemic authority, in 2015 had been a major cause of the current inefficiency in protection.
Tamás Harangozó, deputy group leader of the Socialists, said that the government had one full year to prepare a proper vaccination action plan but failed to draft one and should “feel ashamed” rather than “boasting its protection efforts” as a success.
Bence Tordai, deputy group-leader of Párbeszéd, called for benefit schemes to compensate local governments for their revenue loss and to support pensioners.
Áron Iker, of Momentum, said the government’s crisis management efforts can be described as “too little too late”.
István Hollik, the communications director of ruling Fidesz, said in response that the opposition parties were sending confusing messages which amount to “a mess”.
hungarymatters.hu
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