Gergely Gulyás, Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said the first shipment of up to 1 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine “only depends on the speed of Hungary’s licensing”.
The minister said 129,860 vaccine doses have arrived from the EU so far, and 91,600 people have received their shots, while the government has reserved 19.7 million doses via EU channels. He added that Britain, Israel and China had been “more successful” in producing or obtaining the vaccine than the EU.
Gulyás said that the pandemic was being reined in, but warned that it could pick up again if restrictions were not observed. Restrictions could only be eased if the number of active infections is “significantly” lower or vaccination of the population is high enough to guarantee that the most vulnerable can no longer be infected. He added that around 90,000 more people died in 2020 than a year earlier, and the deaths were Covid-related.
Photo credit: CGTN