BUDAPEST, Hungary | The Hungarian government paved the way on Thursday for compulsory vaccination of employees and civil servants, as the number of COVID-19 contaminations reached levels not seen since the spring.
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“Companies can now require staff vaccination”, announced at a press conference Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to sovereignist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The refractory “will have to be placed on unpaid leave and may be dismissed after a year” and “the government, as an employer”, will itself set an example, he said, inviting local authorities to do the same.
In addition, wearing a mask will once again become “compulsory in public transport from November 1”.
Hungary ended most health restrictions on May 21, judging the level of vaccination sufficient in the country of 9.8 million inhabitants.
At the time, Hungary had one of the highest rates in the European Union, thanks to the use of Russian Sputnik and Chinese Sinopharm vaccines in addition to those approved by the European regulator.
But the campaign then stagnated and only 60% of the population is fully vaccinated, below the EU average (66.4%), according to the AFP database.
Over a million people have already received a booster dose.
If the situation is not as dramatic as in neighboring Romania where hospitals are overwhelmed, it has deteriorated markedly in recent days: 4,039 new cases and 45 deaths were recorded on Thursday.
Hungary is among the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic with more than 30,000 dead since the start of the pandemic, one of the deadliest tolls in the EU.