[ad_1]
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the spring curfews will not return, not all schools will be closed, it will try to keep the country running. In Sweden, this solution has been followed from the beginning, based on true epidemiological considerations. The government was confident that the country’s economy would perform better and that the development of herd immunity would precede a second wave. Hungary has already moved in this direction in May, but the question is how long we will swim without as many deaths as the Swedes, and how well the country’s open economy will recover if we are free to shop.
The goal now is not to keep everyone at home, but to protect Hungary’s viability.
– Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in his usual radio interview on Fridays, in which he stated that based on the national consultation, they see that the Hungarians do not want closures.
“Our goal has always been to keep the spread of the epidemic low enough so that our health system and society as a whole continue to function normally,” said lead epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, responsible for the completely separate epidemic management strategy. from Sweden. Although many in the world have criticized the government for not introducing curfew restrictions, it has not prescribed the use of masks, but has only imposed obligations of distance and hygiene on people; Until then, he is revered as a national hero in his homeland. This is well illustrated by the Dagens Nyheter poll, which found that while 50 percent in April and only 34 in August thought the Swedish government was handling the epidemic well, confidence in Tegnell was unshakeable: in June, only the 60 percent of people said they believed an epidemiologist’s strategy, while in August as many as 63 percent said they thought Tegnell’s method was good.
The statement of the Hungarian Prime Minister and the Swedish expert is essentially the same: it makes no sense to close the partnership. It was only while Viktor Orbán made this statement primarily from an economic point of view, and trying to live up to the expectations shown by opinion polls, that Tegnell always refused to try to sustain Sweden’s economic growth. He professionally argued that the second wave of the epidemic could be avoided if a large part of the population becomes immune to the coronavirus, that is, goes through the disease.
There were many deaths, but for the same reason as in Hungary
In Sweden, the coronavirus epidemic claimed 5,843 lives, one of the highest figures in the world in terms of population, but the increase has been only 1 percent since the beginning of August. And if we look at why the majority of deaths occurred, it seems that for the same reason that mortality per recognized case is also high in Hungary: nursing homes, where not only people of vulnerable age but also poor immune systems are locked up, they have not been adequately protected. .
As early as April, it appeared that Hungary and Sweden followed a fairly similar trajectory, based on the death rate of confirmed cases: at the end of May, the death rate for all cases was roughly the same, between 13.6 and 12 percent. At that time, there was a frequent defense from the Hungarian side that the Hungarian mortality per 1,000 people was much lower, but it was telling that a person in Hungary had the same chance of surviving the infection as in Sweden, precisely because we carried the same shoes as the elderly. with homes. It also became a shelter in the face of “the death of another old man with a chronic illness.”
The difference at the time was that the Hungarian government introduced exit restrictions, while the Stockholm leadership operated with flexible bans, essentially allowing the epidemic to spread to achieve flock immunity as soon as possible. However, by now, Swedish mortality has fallen below that of Hungary, meaning it appears to have managed to protect vulnerable groups, and the disease is still spreading among young people in Hungary.
In the Scandinavian state, this is explained by the fact that a high level of immunity has now been achieved: few new cases and few deaths in the epidemic since August. In Hungary, the infection is now spreading rapidly, but at the moment it is more prevalent among young people, which also means that the death rate has started to improve in Hungary as well. However, the number of deaths also increases on average 14-21 days after the outbreak of the coronavirus infection, as the disease reaches vulnerable groups.
Worth it?
In Sweden, 60 percent of the people celebrated their rule during the epidemic by not introducing curfew restrictions, not even due to the high death rate, there was not much public outrage. Opinions, on the other hand, are divided on the extent to which economic damage has been avoided.
In the second quarter, the country’s GDP fell 8.3 percent, while tightly constrained neighboring Norway fell 7.1 percent, while the economies of Denmark and Finland, which have banned the touch of It has been around for some time, but the schools will reopen soon, there are only 7.4 and 3 respectively. , It was reduced by 2 percent. The opinion of the central bank and the Swedish government is that they would have had a much worse quarter with the bans.
It is worth noting here that Sweden is a more open economy, more exposed to exports, than Norway or Finland. As all its trading partners have been quarantined, consumption has stagnated as a result of the crisis, there has been less demand for Swedish products and services abroad, and an important element of public advocacy has been asking people to go less to restaurants and shops, so domestic consumption also declined. The impact of the decline in exports, according to the local statistical office, represented by itself a contraction of 3.3%, while household consumption was -7.7% in the second quarter, which is equivalent to to a 3.4% drop in GDP. The same figure jumped to nearly 6 percent in neighboring Denmark.
Among the EU countries, the contraction of the Swedish economy tends to be more downward: in Spain, the fall was 18.5%, in France 13.8%, in Italy 12.4%, while the EU average was 11.9% less.
What is Hungary doing?
Hungary’s economy is even more open (and exposed to the international situation) than Sweden’s: last year, foreign trade accounted for 83.33 percent of GDP, according to the World Bank. Factory closures, full closures and nearly complete land closures for tourism caused a record 13.6 percent drop, just as exports ceased. The contraction in net exports alone pushed the economy back 7.7 percentage points. The value added in industry fell 20% and construction 13.2%. Due to exit restrictions, the added value of services decreased by a total of 12.2 percent.
In Hungary, real household consumption fell by 8.6 percent, which was fundamentally better than previously expected, when looked at together with other similar data, final consumption fell by 6.6 percent. This was responsible for a third of the drop in GDP in Hungary and for 4.5 percent, according to the CSO.
When comparing the economies of the two countries, which have a very different structure, consumption may be more pronounced if there are no major restrictions during the second wave. The unpredictable factor is how scared people are by the rapid spread of the epidemic. It is also a risk factor that Hungary’s foreign trading partners introduce measures due to the coronavirus.
It is also questionable what economic stimulus measures the government and central bank can take in the fall. The MNB’s room for maneuver is limited: They no longer want to cut interest rates, while so far there has been little demand for a loan program to help businesses. The FIM 1.5 billion FGS Go! Only HUF 467 billion were put into the program, that is, there was barely a third of the money so far. Rather than monetary, a fiscal stimulus may be needed, a question of what the prime minister and his government will spend from the budget if, according to the national consultation, the people want the country to function.
[ad_2]
