The number of deceased residents of the Pesti út elderly care home has risen to 27, and the second round of tests has come back with positive results in the case of another 58 residents and 4 workers, the Chief Medical Officer said at the Tuesday online press conference of the Operational Group responsible for the containment of the coronavirus epidemic, adding that the number of confirmed coronavirus patients has increased to above two thousand.

Cecília Müller said the infected persons must be isolated in the institution and must be subjected to increased medical attention in order to determine whether they will contract the disease. The investigation in the care home is still ongoing. Those who have been taken to hospital from the care home are in a satisfactory general state of health, she said, adding that they can return to the care home – which has already been disinfected with the assistance of units of the defence forces – after two consecutive negative laboratory tests.

The Chief Medical Officer highlighted that throughout the country there are infections in twenty elderly care homes, including three where larger numbers of infections were detected. At the same time, in the other care homes there were only individual infections, one or two. These persons have been registered and are being monitored to see whether they start displaying symptoms. These cases are affecting the lives of care homes to a lesser extent, she observed.

In this context, she also highlighted that the inspection of elderly care homes is under way, and disinfection will also start with the involvement of the defence forces. Those institutions will be disinfected first where infections have been detected, to be followed by the rest.

The Chief Medical Officer said the head of the office in Hungary of the World Health Organization (WHO) has recently evaluated the epidemic situation in Hungary, and found the testing method followed by Hungary adequate. According to the office manager, in Hungary testing is being carried out in sufficient numbers, and the extent of testing is also satisfactory. The world organisation deems ten tests to be necessary in the environment of a confirmed patient; by contrast, in Hungary we are carrying out thirty, she pointed out.

Regarding the peak of the epidemic estimated for around 3 May, she repeated that this would not mean the end of the epidemic. As to how long this “ceiling” phase will last is something that no one can tell; it could be a longer period, she added, highlighting that during this period it is impossible to draw meaningful conclusions regarding the epidemic based on the data of a day or two.

In the context of national data, the expert said by Tuesday the number of confirmed coronavirus patients had risen to 2,098, 213 persons had died of the disease, and 287 persons had recovered. 842 patients are being treated in hospital; 82 of them require assisted ventilation, they are in a critical condition. In answer to a question, she said in Hungary they are not aware of any case where a healthy person has died of coronavirus infection, but there have been international instances.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)