Coronavirus: hundreds of Hungarians could die every day if this scenario comes true

It is not possible to know in advance how many Hungarians will contract the coronavirus, how many will be connected to a ventilator, and how many will die. It largely depends on the restrictive measures the government takes and how well people adhere to them. The first step was the blockade of the border, there was a ban on visiting nursing homes and hospitals, and then the closure at 11 am of entertainment and catering establishments. The range of possibilities is wide, but now it seems that they are trying to get through the winter period with selective measures around the world so that the economy does not suffer as much damage as in the first half of this year.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also has the scenario of the gradual spread of the epidemic, who has spoken several times in recent days of a scenario in which up to 200,000 people could be infected and 800-1,000 ventilators could work at the same time. Currently, there are officially 25,000 (active) infected in the country, while the number of ventilated people is around 80 and the number of deaths ranges between 15 and 24 per day.

According to the forecast put forward by the Prime Minister, there may be ten times more on a ventilator at the peak of the epidemic than at present. Therefore, in the coming weeks, we will see more and more people treated and ventilated in hospitals if the epidemic does not recede. So the government seems to be basically calculating that the coronavirus epidemic will make more use of the health care system. However, this also means that the number of deaths in the country will increase very significantly.

We observe how deaths evolve until reaching 800 ventilated. We hypothesized that, in parallel with the spread of the epidemic, more and more people would receive ventilators and we analyzed how the mortality patterns of the last weeks developed, which we project for the next period. We assume that there would be 800 ventilated at one time. We anticipate that everyone will receive medical care at the right time, and healthcare personnel will have no problem with this significantly increasing workload, which means they can now cure 800 ventilators to the same standard as the 80’s.

• According to our calculations in the best case, 3,700 people will die from the coronavirus until the number of ventilated people reaches 800, but for this the deaths would have to occur every day in the same way as on the most favorable days so far.
• A in the worst case scenario, there would be more than 11,000 deaths from the epidemic during the time up to 800 ventilated, if the mortality pattern were similar to what we have seen in the worst days so far.

The number of daily deaths may be as follows as more people get on the plane:

The number of cumulative deaths is shown in this graph:

After that, the development of the number of deaths depends on how long the number of people ventilated at the same time remains close to 800 (how many have recently been infected, how many are hospitalized and how many of them are on respirators), that is, how it is develops the epidemic curve.

As shown in the previous figure, an epidemic of the magnitude that would imply the survival of 800 ventilated people, according to the model, the number of fatalities per day could range between 80 and 240 these days.

It is easy to imagine, however, that we will not reach 800 ventilated and hundreds of deaths a day, because if the epidemic gets much bigger than it is now, it is not difficult to imagine the government imposing stricter restrictive measures.

Disclaimer: The model presented above is NOT a forecast of the expected evolution of the epidemic and mortality, but a simulation under a fixed condition. Of course, as we indicated at the beginning of our article, the course of the epidemic will depend on the extent of the restrictions and the discipline of the people.

Cover image: Getty Images