Partial reopening to start around mid-April

HUNGARY - In Brief 30 Mar 2021 by Istvan Racz

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Cabinet minister Gulyás has made the following announcements on Covid restrictions:- Existing restrictions, including a night curfew, the closure of most shops and services, except for basic ones, the closure of schools and kindegartens and the prohibition of public gatherings of size, will be all maintained for the Easter holiday;- As soon as the number of those with at least one shot of a Covid vaccine has reached 2.5 million, shops and services will be allowed to reopen, and the night curfew will be shortened by 2 hours in the evening, whereas a per square meter limitation on the number of customers in shops at the same time will be introduced; and- Schools and kindergartens will be reopened on April 19, by which time all schoolteachers and kindergarten staff will have been vaccinated on request.This morning, the number of people with first shots was standing around 2 million, and we estimate the 2.5 million threshold can be realistically achieved in less than two weeks. So the reopening of shops and services will likely take place on April 12.In our view, this government decision is a risky one. Experts keep saying that vaccination will start to seriously affect the epidemic when a quarter of the whole population has been at least partially vaccinated, but that level of vaccination is still quite low compared to the level of protection required for herd immunity. So, once again, the government has chosen the 'flattening of curve', i.e. to temporarily reduce the number of daily new infections and the burden on hospitals - the latter only from extreme to heavy - with a view to gaining time for pushing further forward with the mass vaccination process. Reopening will ...