The Prime Minister's chief of staff has announced that coronavirus-related restrictions will remain in place until March 1.
According to MTI, Gergely Gulyás said that since being introduced in November, the restrictions had proven effective in curbing the epidemic. However, any easing without widespread vaccination could trigger further waves and result in even stricter measures later on, he added.
The minister said the government will also extend its special powers for 15 days from midnight Feb. 7, and request that parliament extend the special legal order by 90 days, adding the government would then review the situation in the second half of February.
Gulyás said the restrictions could only be eased if the number of active infections continued to drop or if enough vaccines were at hand. Lockdowns in most western European countries are far more severe than Hungary’s restrictions, he added, as a third wave of the pandemic seems to be spreading. Gulyás said that in order to speed up vaccine procurement, the government has decided to green-light the use of any coronavirus vaccine used to inoculate over one million people worldwide and licenced for emergency use elsewhere.
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