Orbán: Hungary must function under disciplined pandemic defence

Hungary must be able to function while mounting a disciplined defence against the novel coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.

The government has a strategy for dealing with a potential surge in coronavirus cases and a need for increased hospital capacities, the prime minister said in a regular interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Radio.

Orbán said that after press reports of a shortage of ventilators at the Korányi Pulmonary Hospital, he paid a visit to the institution on Friday morning where he was told that the hospital has a sufficient number of ventilators, beds and staff.

He added, at the same time, that doctors were aware of the rise in coronavirus patients in need of hospital treatment and the number of people the institutions can admit. This is why, he said, it was crucial for the human resources minister to have a plan drawn up regarding the hospitals that will take up the treatment of Covid-19 patients once capacities at the current designated institutions are exhausted.

Hospitals have around 10,000 beds available to treat coronavirus patients and this can be expanded by 20,000, the prime minister said.

Now that the health-care sector has been equipped to deal with the second wave of the pandemic, Hungary’s defence will be different than it was during the first wave in the spring, Orbán said, noting that back then the government’s priority had been to “buy time to assess the enemy and prepare the health-care sector”. Therefore this time the government is not asking people to stay at home, but rather to simply observe social distancing guidelines and hygiene regulations, he said.

Addressing the left-wing opposition parties, Orbán said that “if they can’t be counted on” they should “at least refrain from attacking epidemiologists”, arguing that doing so constituted an “attack on the country”.

He said claims that there were not enough hospitals, doctors and ventilators to treat patients were “all lies and attacks”.

Asked why the human resources ministry had not filed a criminal complaint over the opposition’s claims, Orbán said legal experts would “look into what sort of legal action can be taken against the left and its scaremongering but the priority right now is defending against the virus”.

The prime minister said that if the left urged people to observe the rules related to the pandemic and focused on dispelling people’s fears, the media would likely be less focused on publishing “sensationalist” stories on health care.