Six patients have died in the past 24 hours, all of them elderly and suffering from underlying illnesses, bringing the total number of fatalities to 505, while novel coronavirus infections in Hungary have increased by 22 to 3,793, koronavirus.gov.hu said.
Fully 1,856 hospitalised patients have made a recovery. The number of active infections has fallen to 1,432. Fully 430 Covid-19 patients are undergoing treatment in hospital, 25 of whom are on ventilators.
Altogether 11,616 are in official home quarantine. The number of tests carried out stands at 166,960. Budapest (1,805 people) has the highest number of infections, followed by Pest County (535), Fejér County (369) and Zala County (247). Békés County (11) has the lowest number.
The government says the aim is to steadily resume normal life based on a strict schedule, and it calls on citizens to follow general precautions. From Monday, kindergartens opened in the country outside Budapest but schools will continue to teach online until the end of the school year. The government submitted on Tuesday a bill to parliament on rescinding its emergency powers.
Chief Medical Officer Cecília Müller told an online press conference of the operative board in charge of containing the epidemic that Central Statistical Office data show that 8.5% fewer people died in Hungary from January to March than a year earlier. “We can’t speak of additional deaths” during the epidemic, she said, adding that the lower death rate may be linked to “a lower-intensity influenza epidemic”. Meanwhile, Müller said a new “patient placement algorithm” has been developed for health-care providers, government agencies and public health professionals. It will help with the placement of patients with the most appropriate health-care facilities, she said.
Speaking at the same press conference, operative board spokesman Róbert Kiss said that starting from Wednesday, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian citizens won’t be forced to go into home quarantine after visiting each other’s countries for less than 48 hours. Kiss said the government on Tuesday submitted a proposal to parliament to rescind its special powers, and this also states that the operative board emergency centre would continue managing the protective measures against the epidemic. The special legal order will be replaced by a state of health emergency, he added. The cabinet meeting on Wednesday will assess the epidemic situation and make decisions regarding further details that will be announced on Thursday, he said.
hungarymatters.hu
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