The Socialist party has called for mass screenings in order to stop the spread of the new coronavirus.
Socialist deputy group leader Tamás Harangozó expressed his and his party’s condolences to the family of the first person to die of the disease in Hungary.
In view of reports of the past days, “it is now certain that the current protocol is not going to be able to stop the spread of the virus,” he said on Sunday.
Mass screenings would ensure that health-care workers and others who have come in contact with the disease do not continue to infect others “for days afterwards”, Harangozó said.
He called on the government to take the necessary steps.
He also called on the government to guarantee that public service employees would not be sanctioned for not being able to organise care for their children at such short notice.
The opposition Democratic Coalition (DK) is asking the government to supply proper protective masks to health workers and start mass screening for the new coronavirus.
Two important elements of early protection against the epidemic is to ensure that the health-care sector is well-prepared, which means adequate protection for workers, and a large number of tests carried out, as proven by the example of South Korea, party MP Zoltán Varga said.
Varga said that the government’s performance so far has been “appalling” and added that identifying the past contacts of coronavirus patients is useless unless tests are carried out.
In response to a question, he said the opposition would make every effort to help the country overcome the situation with “the smallest amount of trauma”.
In a joint statement, the opposition Jobbik, Socialist, Democratic Coalition, LMP, Párbeszéd, Momentum and Liberal parties, as well as independent lawmakers Bernadett Szél and Ákos Hadházy, called on the government to align its decisions with the opinions of health-care professionals as their “professional opinion is the most credible as regards the coronavirus”.
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Reacting to the operative board’s press conference earlier in the day, the statement said journalists represented Hungarians’ rightful expectation to be informed accurately and thoroughly of the situation on a daily basis. The government should take that into account when disseminating information, the statement said.
Featured photo illustration by Zoltán Balogh/MTI