Professor of physics expects fourth wave to peak in Hungary around 23 October

The Head of the Department of Physics of Complex Systems at the Institute of Physics of ELTE pointed out at the webinar of the Hungarian Pharmaceutical Society: news of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic first came from the United States and Israel this summer. 

The number of deaths in the U.S. today is higher than a year ago; last time it was in November 2020 that the situation was as bad as it is now. There are certain states, for example Florida, where twice as many people die every week as during the worst peaks before.

In Israel, the daily peak in the summer was 10,000 new cases, and while 6,000 people died in the first three waves altogether, now about one thousand have died in a very short time. Since 

Israel was the first country in the world to start vaccinating the population at the end of last year, the surge in the summer made it clear that about 6 months after the vaccination immunity falls back to the level of the unvaccinated. However, immunity was measured to return to 95 percent within 2 weeks after the third dose.

Gábor Vattay explains why the number of infections in Hungary is just starting to rise with the Israeli example: as most people here received the vaccine in mid-May, the virus has not been able to spread so far because the population has been highly vaccinated.

However, the highest level of protection will be over in October, so there will be more and more new infections in the coming weeks, followed a month and a half later by an increase in the number of people needing hospitalization and deaths.

We can see already, he points out, that the vaccine cannot prevent the transmission of the infection any more. According to his calculations, we can expect 2500 to 3000 new cases on October 15 and, depending on the number of tests,

new infections will reach the plateau with 3-5 thousand cases around 23 October, and the number of deaths is expected to be about 40-60 per day. The situation could deteriorate dramatically in November, because protection against serious complications will fade and mortality could rise to a similar level as last autumn, Gábor Vattay says, adding that this can still be prevented if we start the third vaccination campaign. 

The Israeli example also shows that the vaccines also provide protection against the Delta variant, he says. He also revealed that as he had been given the second vaccine in February, he had already signed up for the third dose in August.