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“Many more people have been vaccinated in Britain, many more people have been vaccinated in Israel, many more people have been vaccinated in Russia, many more people have been vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine. Meanwhile, we have a lot of patients here and we are dead. Shouldn’t we face the fact that we screw something up, that something is not right? “Viktor Orbán asked the question on public radio. It was not the responsibility of the Hungarian government, but of the European Union.
And although an EU summit was held yesterday, Orbán didn’t ask that question there because it just didn’t fit the Brussels label. Therefore, it is not surprising that he shared the idea in his head with the Hungarian radio students.
It is difficult for the Hungarian government to communicate what to do with the fact that many Hungarians died in the epidemic in the fall. Today, Orbán would hardly say what he did at the beginning of September, that the Hungarians measure the success of the fight against the epidemic in human lives. By then, 620 covid patients had died, since then 11,191. That is, 18 times more than before Orbán’s now famous saying.
In early autumn, the Prime Minister even agreed that the government’s responsibility to combat the epidemic, after the fall with heavy losses, had already announced in parliament in December that “the government has no responsibility.” We have written more about how Orbán got here and how the government really handles the epidemic.
Finally, Orban found his usual punching bag, Brussels, to point out who was causing many illnesses and deaths.
It is undeniable that there are few vaccines in the world, and the astonishingly rapid pace of vaccine development far outstrips the development of production capacity. There is a great fight for the few vaccines. Even in autumn, the European Union, including Orban, has decided to participate in this contest jointly, so that the Member States do not compete with each other, abusing their economic dominance to acidify the vaccine. In a fair and free fight, Hungary could hardly surpass Germany or France.
Sure, it would have been possible to have even better contracts with manufacturers, but it was possible to know beforehand that few vaccines would be available in the March purchase. As early as October, Orban said after an EU summit that the high-mass vaccine probably wouldn’t arrive until April. In other words, it was not mentioned that by January there would be enough vaccines to begin mass vaccinations. (It’s a different story from how the vaccines were administered in England and Israel. And Orbán simply said that many more people would have been vaccinated in Russia. Russians have very serious production capacity problems, as Telex wrote, nationwide. More optimistic estimate, up to 200,000 of the 145 million people were vaccinated last week, but obviously it is important that the Russians can transport Sputnik to Hungary, the first in the EU).
Orbán also expressed a rather steep line of thought in his radio interview when asked why the EU approval of AstraZeneca was delayed. He accused Brussels of essentially making a profit:
“Anyway, I don’t understand exactly what economic context underlies vaccine purchases, I only see that some companies have millions of vaccines in stock, Brussels does not issue the license, the same drug is already being vaccinated in Canada, Israel and England. And especially the price of this vaccine is much cheaper than the price of the vaccine that is already on the market. What correlations are there between these facts, and if there is a competitive correlation between economic and pharmaceutical companies, and if this can somehow fit into political decision-making? We don’t have a clear picture of this far from here, still 1700 kilometers away. Brussels. One thing we know is that we don’t really care. There should be as many vaccines as possible in Hungary. “
The AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved by the EU Medicines Agency, which could happen on January 29. Licensing appears to be primarily a professional matter, despite trying to make it a political or economic matter in Orbán. (It is a really trivial matter, but in Israel you do not vaccinate with the AstraZeneca mentioned by Orbán, but with Pfizer-BioNTech.)
The authorities are still working at a tremendous rate compared to themselves, but it turned out last week this is still slow for Orbán, and he sees the authorities now as paperwork. Of course, this is not only true, other politicians are also trying to pressure the EU Medicines Agency. In the end, AstraZeneca was allowed to be home without even being screened, simply claiming that the British authorities had already done this work, so it would be good for us too. Meanwhile, shipment can only start if the EU authority also blesses the vaccine.
The Orbán government’s plan to control the epidemic could not be reversed due to the fact that it occurred in the EU vaccine supply, which was expected since October, that is, few vaccines have arrived so far.
“European unity is a nice thing, I really appreciate it, it is also important to help each other, it is also important to keep the agreements, but the Hungarians cannot listen because the supply of vaccines in Brussels is slow.” “- said the Hungarian Prime Minister to his Hungarian students.
The government does not reveal exactly at what rate and how many vaccines come from EU purchases. At the same time, the European Commission announced this week that it expects member states to vaccinate 70 percent of the adult population by the summer. Probably with the amount of vaccine the EU has bought.
Anyway, there was a real delay in the control of the epidemic, for example, when in autumn, with the deterioration of infection, hospital and mortality data, Viktor Orbán did not want to adjust the economy and only decided to do so in November, with great difficulty. But the slowness can also be seen in the fact that, unlike other countries, only 5 people, not 6 people, were vaccinated from a blister before January 12, despite the fact that there was enough material in the vials. This could have increased the number of vaccinated by 20 percent after the first vaccinations.
Today, the operational tribe reported 98 deaths, and so far there have been a total of 11,811 victims of the epidemic in Hungary. It is very important to receive as many vaccinations as possible as soon as possible. But these people did not die because millions of vaccines had not yet arrived from Brussels.
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