Hungary Declares State of Emergency, Shuts Universities on Virus

(Bloomberg) --

Hungary’s government declared a state of emergency to help deal with the coronavirus outbreak, closing university campuses and banning large gatherings.

“These measures are unprecedented in the three decades since the fall of communism,” Gergely Gulyas, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, told reporters on Wednesday in Budapest. Hungary has registered 13 cases of the coronavirus and has 69 people in quarantine.

Further government measures include:

• Banning travel to Hungary from Italy, China, South Korea and Iran
• Reinstating stricter controls along the Austrian and Slovenian borders
• Banning indoor events with more than 100 participants and more than 500 for outdoor ones

To contact the reporter on this story: Marton Eder in Budapest at meder4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Nicholson at anicholson6@bloomberg.net, Zoltan Simon, Balazs Penz

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