Hungary announced new COVID-19 lockdown measures on Thursday to try to curb a "very strong" third wave of the pandemic, closing most shops and shifting to remote learning in primary schools.
With new cases hitting a three-month daily high of 6,278 on Thursday, mainly because of the spreading coronavirus variant first found in Britain, Prime Minister Viktor Orban faces a growing political challenge.
Orban, who faces an election battle early next year, had kept shops and industries open to try to limit the economic effects of the pandemic, which caused a 5% recession last year.
"The third wave (of the pandemic) is strong, very strong and worse than the second wave had been," Gergely Gulyas, Orban's chief of staff, told reporters.
Gulyas said Hungary's vaccination campaign had gathered speed but was not fast enough to stop the spread of new infections.
Primary schools and nurseries will shut until April 7, and all shops except food stores, pharmacies and petrol stations will close from March 8 until March 22. Outdoor sport will be allowed if social distancing rules are followed.
Gulyas said employers should allow home working wherever possible, and that wearing a mask would be mandatory in all public places.
"We hope we are in the last phase of the pandemic and we will reach vaccination levels within a few weeks or months that allow a reopening (of the economy), which will start from March 22 in a gradual manner," he said.
Since mid-November, Hungary has had a night-time curfew, hotels and restaurants have been closed, and remote learning has been in place in all secondary schools.
Last week it became the first European Union country to start inoculating people with China's Sinopharm vaccine after rolling out Russia's Sputnik V vaccine although neither has been granted approval for emergency use by the bloc.
The Russian and Chinese shots are being administered along with the Pfizer-BioNTech, vaccine and shots developed by US company Moderna and AstraZeneca, all of which have received the EU green light.
As of Thursday, over 785,000 people in Hungary had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The virus has infected 446,178 people in the country of 10 million and killed 15,476.
Rio De Janeiro Announces Curfew as Brazil Battles Brutal COVID Wave
Brazil’s second biggest city, Rio de Janeiro, will be the latest to adopt new COVID-related restrictions on Friday, including a night curfew, in a bid to slow a deadly second wave that is ravaging the South American country.
The city of 6.7 million people will impose a curfew from 11pm to 5am and order restaurants to close at 5pm, while certain businesses, such as clubs, will be shut altogether, according to information published in the city’s official bulletin on Thursday.
While COVID-19 deaths and infections are falling globally, that is not the case in Brazil, where a record 1,910 people died from the virus on Wednesday.
In response, various states and cities have adopted new restrictions on commerce in recent days, including the Federal District, home of capital Brasilia, and Sao Paulo state, Brazil’s most populous.
The new restrictions in Rio are due to last through March 11.