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GULYÁS: HUNGARY COVID-19 RESPONSE EFFECTIVE

Protection efforts against the novel coronavirus epidemic have been effective in Hungary and more successful than in many western European countries, the head of the Prime Minister's Office told a regular press briefing.
 

Gergely Gulyás said the special legal order introduced with the state of emergency was lifted after 98 days, and announced that shopping time restrictions were no longer in force. The special legal order has been much shorter than in the majority of European countries because the government had decided to introduce it in time and taken important restrictive measures at an earlier stage of the epidemic than Italy, Belgium and Spain did, he added.
Immediate and effective response was enabled by a special legal order put in place, as well as by a “national unity” created “in a new development” without support by the opposition, Gulyás said.
He said the opposition’s “immoral attacks” against staff working on protection, smear-campaigns to discredit Hungary abroad and the circulation of “fake videos” had all been “morally unacceptable and degrading acts”. He expressed hope that the novel coronavirus would not return but warned that there was a real danger of a second wave. In case a state of emergency must be reintroduced, the government would like to have political unity, he said.