Hungary must prepare for surge in COVID-19 cases -Surgeon General

The country aims to give the jab to about 80,000 more people by Wednesday, although several officials have warned in recent days that further restrictions may be needed to curb the pandemic. Restrictions in place since November include a night-time curfew, the closure of hotels and restaurants, a ban on all gatherings and remote learning in secondary schools.

Hungary must prepare for a surge in COVID-19 cases during a third wave of the pandemic due to the spread of the British and South African variants of the novel coronavirus, Surgeon General Cecilia Muller said on Tuesday.

As of Monday, Hungary had detected five cases of the South African variant of the virus, she said. "The pandemic is progressing at an enormous pace throughout Europe and in Hungary, the number of cases rises day after day as well, even as 721,000 people had already received (at least) the first dose of a vaccine," Muller told an online news briefing.

Hungary has inoculated about a quarter of a million people since last Wednesday, when it became the first European Union member to start using Chinese company Sinopharm's COVID-19 vaccine, following a similar move with Russia's Sputnik V shot. The country aims to give the jab to about 80,000 more people by Wednesday, although several officials have warned in recent days that further restrictions may be needed to curb the pandemic.

Restrictions in place since November include a night-time curfew, the closure of hotels and restaurants, a ban on all gatherings and remote learning in secondary schools. On Tuesday, the PSZ teachers' union said the government should launch remote learning in primary schools as well to slow the spread of the virus, which has infected 435,689 Hungarians so far and killed 15,188.