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In the spring, it was common for what was happening in Austria to be with us for a week or two. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has not drawn this parallel since, and even started treating it as something of an article. But is that really the case? No way. Not only because there is no delay of two or a week between the two countries, but also because Austria and Hungary are taking a different path, in terms of managing the epidemic and its outcome.
If we compare the data from the two states, there is no evidence that the domestic situation is similar to that of Austria. The data were compared on the basis of data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which eliminates methodological differences where possible. Due to this, the data is not updated, the latest daily data refers to November 1. But it is also eloquent.
No serious conclusions can be drawn from the number of infected. In week 44, here the ECDC uses a weekly breakdown, there were 26,800 infected people in Austria and 19,900 in Hungary. In proportion to the population, that is, per 100,000 inhabitants, there are 303 cases in Austria and 204 in Hungary, which means that the situation is worse on paper than for brothers-in-law. However, it should be noted that the Austrians do much more testing, meaning more testing simply results in more positive cases. This is also the case according to the latest data.
Data that is independent of the number of tests performed speaks much more than this. These are the number of COVID patients treated in the hospital, the number of patients admitted to the ventilator, and the number of daily or cumulative deaths. None of the data sets give reason for optimism, and in fact none show any signs that we are following Austria in any way.
We drift away but in a bad way
Rather, it seems to be emerging that Austria can grasp the spread of the epidemic much better than Hungary. We look at the figures for the two countries between September 1 and November 1. At the beginning of September it was a little worse in Austria, but it was more or less the same as in Hungary: around a hundred were hospitalized in both countries, in an intensive care unit at home a week, 30 were sent to Austria and one maximum of one or two patients died each day.
Compared to this, two months later, more than four thousand infected people were hospitalized in Hungary and more than three hundred were in the intensive care unit. The daily death toll was approaching seventy, several times more than a hundred since then, and in total it had already exceeded 1,200.
Comparing these figures with conditions in Austria, it turns out that there are almost the same number of patients in the intensive care unit, even more in proportion to the population. The reason for this is unknown, but there are no other similarities in the data. Compared to our 4,205 hospital patients, only 1,657 people in Austria need care on November 1.
And more importantly: while in Hungary the daily mortality data is 69, in Austria it is only 18. The daily data is of course not reliable, as the fluctuation is significant, it is worth considering from a perspective more espacious. The situation is not much better in the case of the accumulated data either: between September 1 and November 1, a total of 364 patients died in Austria and 1,205 in Hungary.
In other words, we had three times as many dead covids in two months than in Austria.
The data shows that in Austria, although there are more confirmed cases, as there is more evidence, there are far fewer seriously ill patients. And even fewer are dead.
Two weeks ago
The gap began to grow sometime in the second week of October. During this period, there were no severe restrictions in the country or in the neighboring state. Subsequently, Austria gradually introduced austerity measures. In the first round, as of October 23, came the mandatory use of masks, the prohibition of larger groups, and as of November 1, the curfew was restricted and restaurants and inns were closed. High schools and institutions of higher education have switched to digital education.
Hungary implemented these adjustments with a delay of one and a half weeks. To affirm that Austria is our chemical kitchen. However, this is certainly a wrong starting point, since in the second half of October we already had more hospitalized and dead patients than Austria, which means that if this assumption was ever true, it is clearly not the case anymore. . Not so much that the gap will not only decrease, but will only increase.
After all, Austria, which is already in a better position, took all the steps before Hungary.
Austria can flatten the curve a bit, or at least keep the number of patients treated in hospital low, Hungary has not been able to do that yet, which could mean thousands of lives.
Cover image: “Share your toilet paper!” mural in Vienna. MTI / EPA / Christian Bruna
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