The coronavirus is exploding, these are the most infected counties – but what is going on in Budapest?
According to data published on Wednesday, 21,840 new coronavirus cases were registered in Hungary last week, and 96 people died as a result of the infection. 1593 covid patients are treated in hospital, 19 are on ventilators. The latest figures indicate a further strengthening of the epidemic: the weekly number of cases has now increased by 52% compared to 40% the previous week and 28% before that. The number of people treated in the hospital increased by 18% in one week.
As you can see in the chart above, the numbers are now above the recent low-level peak, and we are really where we were at the beginning of March, when the fifth wave of the omicron virus variant was winding down. There is an increasing chance that the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the omikron have now triggered a new, sixth wave of epidemics, but fortunately the death rate of the virus variants belonging to the omikron – obviously primarily due to vaccination – is higher than the previous ones.
Waves of coronavirus in Hungary | ||||||
Wave | Period | Dominant variant | Infection number | Number of deaths | Mortality rate | Number of people vaccinated* |
1. | 03/04/2020 – 20.06.2020. | Original (Wuhan) | 4,086 | 570 | 14.0% | 0 |
2. | 21.06.2020 – 26.01.2021 | Original (Wuhan) | 356,791 | 11,543 | 3.2% | 0 |
3. | 27.01.2021 – 07.07.2021 | Alpha (UK) | 447 461 | 17,886 | 4.0% | 17,772 |
4. | 07/08/2021 – 30.12.2021. | Delta (Indian) | 444,717 | 9 105 | 2.0% | 5,126,330 |
5. | 31.12.2021 – 13.06.2022. | Omikron (South African) | 670 067 | 7,490 | 1.1% | 5,981,569 |
6. | 14.06.2022 – | Omikron (South African) | 64 199 | 292 | 0.5% | 6,198,018 |
Altogether | 1,987,321 | 46,886 | 2.4% | 6,198,798 | ||
Source: koronavirus.gov.hu, Portfolio | * at the beginning of the wave, at least twice |
A new wave has arrived – he commented on the developments at the beginning of July on his Facebook page Virologist Gábor Kemenesi. According to the reason for the phenomenon, it is nothing more than “significantly leaving the world” with the coronavirus, and vaccination is adequate in most poor countries. Thus, the virus is able to produce new and new variants much faster than we expected, due to all other factors, such as the weather. Newer subvariants regularly outbid their predecessors, avoiding the protection provided by our neutralizing antibodies, which are the first line of defense, a little better. This is due to the accumulation of mutations in the appropriate locations of the spike protein.
According to Hungarian data, in the past week, in proportion to the population, the most new infections were registered in Budapest, Győr-Moson-Sopron and Baranya counties, and the least in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Heves and Fejér counties. The uniform nationwide spread of the epidemic is indicated by the fact that there is not such a large (e.g. three to four times the previously seen) difference between the most infected and the least infected counties: in Budapest, 57% more new infections were registered in proportion to the population than in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén.
![](https://pcdn.hu/articles/images-o/c/o/v/covid3-546711.png)
We also looked at where the number of new infections increased the most: Hajdú-Bihar and Csongrád-Csanád counties are at the forefront in this respect, with a slightly over 75% increase in the number of cases compared to the previous week. A pleasant surprise was Vas County, which in recent weeks was at the top in terms of the number of new infections, but only the number of infections increased by the smallest amount, by 12%, so it was in the second half of the field in terms of the number of new infections. It is conceivable that the epidemic curve peaks here, but this will also depend on the national spread.
![](https://pcdn.hu/articles/images-o/e/m/e/emel-546715.png)
Budapest’s primacy is strange now, because the capital usually leads the way at the very beginning of epidemic waves (presumably due to the higher number of foreign trips, the high population density and the greater intensity of economic activity), which it has already successfully abandoned in recent weeks, and last week it seemed . , the epidemic curve in the capital flattens. In connection with this, the capital has now jumped to the top in the number of new infections, and the third percentage increase in the number of cases was also the third increase here, 68%. There is no county where the epidemic is receding, the graph below shows the curve of the most interesting counties.
![](https://pcdn.hu/articles/images-o/b/u/d/budapest-546717.png)
Western countries are already starting to take the summer wave seriously, but according to the words of Minister Gergely Gulyás, we
We don’t want to do anything for now.
He answered this to the journalist’s question three weeks ago on Government Info about what the government should plan for the increase in the number of coronavirus cases. It doesn’t seem that much has changed since then, except that certain hospitals have been banned from visiting.
However, you should prepare for the new wave – if it is too late for the summer, then for the autumn – even if it will not be as big and/or dangerous as the previous ones. In Austria and Germany, for example, so many new infections are found every day, as if we had over 7,000, not 3,000 infections per day. In these countries, the number of cases is already falling, and in Slovenia and Croatia, the epidemic curve seems to be peaking recently, at a level higher than previous epidemic waves.
Without knowing the number of samples taken, and in the absence of epidemiological preparedness, we face the further deterioration of the coronavirus situation. The effectiveness of old vaccinations is also deteriorating, and there are hardly any new ones: last week, only 551 first, 406 second, 1142 third and 4166 fourth vaccinations were taken by the Hungarian population. Moreover, the 6,265 weekly vaccinations were less than the previous week’s 6,611, even though the autumn season, which is critical for the epidemic, is getting closer.
Cover image: Getty Images