Through an artifact of imperfect reporting, Hungary appears second only to Russia and above the US in COVID-19 deaths. These are probably the deaths registered on Monday, which are reported on Tuesday and probably happened during the weekend and on Monday. We note that, in Hungary, Sundays, and, likely, some Saturdays appear to never have any deaths.
Still Hungary punches very high for a country with under 10 million people, many of which are living abroad. We can only hope that Omicron will soon come to Hungary and displace the deadly Delta. The next best thing after vaccination for the Hungarian government to do would be to spread the mild Omicron in the country, much like the UK does at the moment.
Instead of this, the Hungarian government focuses on quarantine and social distancing, which slow down the spread of Omicron and allow Delta to infect and kill more people.
Although a bitter pill to swallow for public relations, the spread of Omicron will likely cut the overall hospitalizations and death, despite, perhaps, coming with a short surge when everyone is infected at the same time and a small fraction end up in hospital due to either somatic or psychosomatic reasons.
Hospitals are not used to turning away COVID-19 patients who aren't very sick. They will certainly have to master this skill very well during the reign of Omicron.
No comments:
Post a Comment