Hungary in the first stage of the fourth Covid wave
September 23rd, 2021A fact-finding journalist suggests that Hungary should follow Austria’s example and return to wearing face masks and keeping social distance, as the virus doesn’t stop at the national borders.
On Válasz, Anita Élő finds the increasing number of Covid patients and the slowly mounting data on lethal outcomes worrying signs that should prompt Hungarians to exercise more caution in facing the pandemic. Her country-people, she complains, tend to behave as if the pandemic had been overcome. In reality, hospitalisation figures are approaching those in Austria, where the border is closed to travellers without a green pass and where FFP face masks are required indoors and outdoors alike. By contrast, Hungarians tend to believe that vaccination alone is sufficient to combat the disease. Élő, on the other hand, warns her readers that although vaccination does save lives, it doesn’t stop the virus from spreading. ‘Trains are reaching Hungary from increasingly infected territories’, she remarks, and urges her readers to use the well-known simple protective measures if they want to avoid new lockdowns.