[ad_1]
According to the latest data on Sunday, more than 286,000 people in Hungary have already received their first coronavirus vaccine and more than 105,000 have passed the second stab. After the first two phases of the vaccination plan (health workers and intervening in nursing homes and residential social institutions), the elderly were vaccinated in hospital vaccination points and GPs from last Thursday to Sunday.
The four-day plan was nearly successful, with 39,109 of the 40,000 people receiving their first vaccination (nearly 15-15,000 people on Fridays and Saturdays), but the 7-day moving average of the daily number of people vaccinated for the first time was again below 10,000. According to the full vaccination plan that was leaked the other day, if there is enough vaccine, around half a million people a day could be vaccinated at home using the maximum capacity.
We are still pretty far from that now, but in the meantime we must see that More and more types of vaccines are now available in Hungary. After the preparation of Pfizer / BioNtech and Moderna, a shipment of 20,000 to 400,000 AstraZeneca vaccines arrived last Saturday, and over the weekend the National Center for Public Health issued a license to vaccinate the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, of which 20,000 people have come last. Tuesday, so they will start getting vaccinated with these already this week. Therefore, daily vaccination figures are expected to increase dramatically in the coming weeks.
The fact that 286 thousand people have already received their first vaccination in Hungary is a vaccination rate of 2.9%, which is among the lowest among the countries in the region. For those who also receive the second vaccine (in principle, full protection develops shortly after the second injection), we go to 1%.
The above number first means that it can be said that 3% of Hungarian society is highly protected against coronavirus (it can no longer cause serious illness or complications in them), but let’s not forget that There may be many people who, knowingly or unknowingly, have also suffered from the disease in recent months.. They are naturally protected and, as Prime Minister Viktor Orbán pointed out on Friday’s radio show: add them to the statistics of people with immunity who have been confirmed to have the disease in the last six months (now there are 371,000, a 3.7%). of the society).). So we get to that right away
at least 6.7% of Hungarian society can be protected from the epidemic.
According to the international literature, of course, at least 5 to 10 times more people have been diagnosed with the disease than have actually been confirmed, but as it is not possible to know exactly, this cannot be reasonably expected in relation to with the economic reopening plan of a country. .
After all of the above, most people are obviously interested in when there will be so many vaccines and vaccines at home that can be used to open the country safely, that is, the measure does not run the risk of spreading the epidemic by a weather. a few more weeks. (Before that, it is even important that the epidemic does not reappear in Hungary due to British or other mutations. Unfortunately, there has been a slight deterioration in some indicators in recent days).
The current epidemiological restrictions are in effect until March 1 and, according to the radio release and press conference of Viktor Orbán on Friday and Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister also on Friday, it is not yet clear whether the restrictions will be gradually lifted or for a bigger step. On that subject, however, they unanimously stated that it was probable There will be two important decision points for the government: one at the beginning of March and the second around Easter, that is, at the beginning of April. Decisions on openness (when, at what rate, if those who have already been vaccinated will benefit, if there will be an official vaccination certificate, in what form) can also be significantly influenced by what people say in the online consultation. two weeks starting in mid-February.
The timing and intensity of the opening depend, on the one hand, on how many vaccines will be available in the country, so it is worth examining the theoretically possible vaccination rates first. Based on all the latest available manufacturer and government signals, we now estimate that At the beginning of March, about 1.5 million people will have enough vaccine, and by the beginning of April, about 3.5 million people will have enough vaccine in Hungary. The critical level of 6 million (the minimum level for the start of “flock immunity”) is expected to be reached by the end of April, and then the incoming volume will increase further in the coming months.
From now on, the big question is how quickly the amount of vaccine received can be administered (logistical-organizational issues) and how the population’s attitude towards vaccines will change. The first factor is likely to be a lower barrier to vaccination than the second, although the latest CSO survey is encouraging because it shows that the willingness of Hungarians to vaccinate has continued to increase and rejection has decreased. Thus, data collection at the end of January already shows that
the field of Hungarians who are certainly vaccinated against the coronavirus (40%) and perhaps (27%) together already exceed the theoretical threshold of herd immunity of 60%.
When planning the opening, in addition to the theoretical vaccine supply (green line in the following figure, in our theoretical scenario, the first vaccine is administered as soon as the vaccine is received), it is worth considering the number of infections due to coronavirus in the last 6 months (orange line) and how there can be a camp for those who actually administer the vaccine + those who enjoy natural protection. Regarding the latter, Viktor Orbán said on Friday that at the beginning of March there will be at least 1 million people and, in the worst case, at the beginning of April 2 million people who have already been vaccinated or are under natural protection therefore, this is also indicated by a blue line in the figure below.
Thus, the figure below shows how, in theory, the maximum protection rate and in practice the minimum can develop in Hungarian society. Once we have surrounded:
At the beginning of March, the proportion of people protected can be 10% in the most pessimistic case, 20% in the most optimistic case, and by the beginning of April the two legs of the “scissors” will open to 20% and 41 %, respectively.
Obviously, the assumption that the entire incoming vaccine supply will be administered to humans immediately (more precisely the first dose) may be quite different from reality, mainly due to a more cautious public attitude towards Russian and Chinese vaccines and anomalies. in the national authorization. That is why we also analyze how vaccination + natural protection could be developed at home, if only half of the Russian and Chinese vaccines arriving in Hungary could be administered people due to their cautious attitude (blue line), or theoretically, in the worst case, no dose could be given to people due to total rejection (orange line). The scenario outlined by Viktor Orbán is a little worse because there may be a discrepancy in the vaccine delivery data / assumptions being taken into account, or our three lines calculate immediate home delivery of the incoming vaccine supply while obviously licensing emerging (NNK reviews eastern vaccines by shipment) and also logistics (vaccination) that slow down this process.
In any case, the figure shows the worst case scenarios, showing that in the case of a government decision in early March, it can be at least 10%, realistically 16-18% then the proportion of those vaccinated and those with natural immunity,
and at the beginning of April, in the worst case, rates of 20% are expected, in real terms between 32 and 41%.
This is a good indication that in the long term, there is much more uncertainty and much depends on how the population is in favor of Chinese and Russian vaccines, which of course is greatly influenced by the quality of information from the government and the experts.
All in all, it seems realistic at this point that the government will make the decision to lift the restrictions in early April, but obviously a lot depends on the epidemic in Hungary, the effectiveness of vaccines against mutations and the fact that the Hungarian population when and how often to request vaccination. In fact, it is not so much the government (although everyone expects it to “announce a date”) but that the timing and possible content of the lifting of the restrictions depend on the discipline of the Hungarian population in the coming months and its openness to vaccines. oriental. .
Cover image source: MTI / Attila Balázs. The owner will be working on accounting at his closed Italian restaurant in Nyíregyháza on November 11, 2020. According to the latest government protection measures, restaurants will not be able to receive guests from this date. Guests can only dine in the restaurant.
[ad_2]
