A decree has been issued suspending the curfew.

The brief decree signed by Viktor Orbán establishes that the following point is added to the exemption from the curfew:

3 / A. § ​​2020. between 8:00 p.m. on December 24 and 5:00 a.m. on December 25, 2020 – notwithstanding the provisions of Article 3 (1) – It is allowed to leave the place of residence, stay or accommodation or stay in a public place.

The regulation will go into effect on Wednesday and expire on December 26.

Interestingly, an amendment to the 10-person limit for a private event in the original ordinance is not spelled out in Monday’s ordinance, although the government has predicted that there will also be relaxation here. Under the new rules, children are not included in the ten-person limit for family gatherings. This point may not even need to be regulated separately, it will simply be applied in practice on Christmas Eve by those who carry out the inspections.

The decision is not unexpected

Two weeks ago, the government decided to extend the restrictive measures (curfew, containment restrictions, etc.) until January 11, leaving only the possibility of a special (softer than the current one) on December 24, day of Good night. the rules may come. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has already made clear in connection with his announcement two weeks ago that a decision is expected on Christmas Eve on December 21. Therefore, this announcement and the government decree were made public on Monday.

This was confirmed in his radio interview last Friday when he said: “This year will be Christmas. Christmas is a family party, it is when the country stands up and arrives. But we have to give that up.” The regulation of Christmas Eve is not yet certain, a decision will be made at the government meeting on Monday, I would be very happy if at least tonight it fits a little more freely. .

Namely, the content of Monday’s announcement and the government decree is not at all surprising, and the Portfolio also made these special rules more likely in its previous articles.

As we wrote earlier, it is up to the government to decide how much risk to take to loosen the rules overnight, as estimated by its experts, and how this is proportional to the social benefits of the decision.

What do the latest epidemiological data show?

Several of the latest epidemic data suggest that the situation is improving (a downward trend in the 7-day moving average of active cases and the number of patients hospitalized and ventilated). However, in relation to the data released on Monday morning, we also note an important point.

Unfortunately, the death toll remains stagnant at a high level. The 183 deaths are just behind the peak so far, and we don’t even see a substantial decline despite the dramatic decline in the number of new infections. We know that the decline in the number of new infections will only have a delayed effect on the death data, but since the reversal of the new infection curve in early December, this should have happened a lot, but it has not. There may be several reasons why we do not see a decrease: the older age group may be infected, leading to an increase in the incidence of serious diseases within the total number of infections, but it is also inconceivable that not all severe patients in overloaded medical care are diagnosed with coronavirus. In recent weeks, at the peak, many die of other diseases with their coronavirus infection undiscovered (this would explain the additional mortality this year, which is not equivalent to the official mortality from coronavirus alone), so it is possible that Let’s not see the drop because previously, the number of deaths infected by coronavirus was higher. Unfortunately, however, we can only guess what is really behind it.

Cover image source: MTI / Koszticsák Szilárd