In the past two weeks, the safety of the people has increased significantly thanks to vaccinations, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told listeners during his radio interview. According to the prime minister, the figures speak for themselves, since 1 million vaccinations have been administered so far during this campaign, out of which 115,000 people requested their first vaccination and 800,000 the booster shot, that is, their third vaccination.
The PM said that we are on high-speed when it comes to third vaccinations: 27 percent of the Hungarian population has received the third vaccination, while the EU average is around 10 percent.
Although setting up vaccination action points is a large burden for the healthcare system, it has coped well so far, with the help of soldiers and police officers, PM Orbán said. He added that Austria was forced to shut down because its hospital capacity is weaker than that of Hungary, which has proportionally fewer hospital beds.
The prime minister confirmed that they will be contacting anyone whose immunity is expiring this month and will do so online.
“The shortage of teachers is not a pleasant thing, but if our children fall ill in large numbers, that is an even bigger problem,” PM Orbán said in response to a question about the possibility of many people having to leave their teaching posts because they are required to be vaccinated.
Regarding the new Omicron variant, the prime minister said that there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding it; there is no consensus among scientists, for example, on how contagious it is and what specific symptoms it has, but it is better to be cautious, he said.
Commenting on the child protection law, PM Orbán said that we have our own opinion on how to educate our own children and that neither the European Commission nor the Venice Commission can interfere in this.
“It is important for our children to be Hungarian and to pass on our culture. We will defend this position,” the prime minister said. "There is a wave in the West that does not respect the right of parents to say that sex education is the parent's business," he added.
The government alone cannot protect the interests of Hungarians, which is why the referendum on the child protection law is necessary. A similar thing happened in 2016, PM Orbán reminded listeners. Hungary defended itself then with a referendum on migration and must do so again today regarding the protection of children.
He added that the truth is, we are being blackmailed. “Our economy is part of the single European market, we are entitled to the money, and this situation cannot be maintained in the long term,” the PM said. This is also simply a game of nerves, he added.
According to PM Orbán, there was no factual basis for this blackmail, but it is clearly important to Brussels, which is why the EU wants us to withdraw the child protection law. “It is important for Brussels because they expect LGBTQ activists to be allowed into schools and kindergartens. If this issue were not important, Brussels would not be making such a fuss,” he said.
Referring to the coming elections next spring, the prime minister said that an election is a serious matter about what our future will be. Brussels wants the government to give ground on immigration, energy prices and child-rearing, but that is not going to happen, so they want a change in the government here, he said.
PM Orbán also said that big energy companies would not pass on their extra costs to consumers and would have to pay for the losses themselves. The government has also decided that 33,000 small businesses will be allowed to join the universal service tariff. Their turnover must be under 4 billion and they must have less than 10 employees to be included, the prime minister said.