On Thursday, the government announced a strict lockdown effective from midnight on Sunday to try to contain the third wave of the coronavirus. All schools will remain closed until April 7, while non-essential shops will be closed for 2 weeks.

On Friday in his regular weekly interview on Kossuth Radio, Prime Minister Orbán said that without the restrictions, the number of coronavirus patients treated in hospitals could surge to 15 or 20 thousand from today’s 6,867 total.

In Magyar Nemzet, Ida Tóth writes that Hungarians have learned to live with the coronavirus emergency, and have got used to organizing their lives under lockdown. The pro-government commentator believes that Hungarians will cope with the new round of restrictions too.

444.hu’s Márton Bede thinks that the government made a huge mistake by not announcing the lockdowns earlier. The liberal pundit recalls that experts have since mid-January warned about the spread of highly contagious coronavirus variants, and the infection rate has also been on the rise for weeks.

Bede adds that last Friday, even the Prime Minister warned Hungarians that the country would face its toughest weeks, but despite all this, the government failed to introduce new restrictive measures. Bede concludes by accusing the government and Prime Minister Orbán personally of responsibility for the coronavirus deaths of recent weeks.

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