Even so, Hungary reported its highest ever daily coronavirus death tally - 311 - on Wednesday, bringing the total to 22,409.
"This virus has destroyed us," said Maria Tarnoky, a hairdresser in Budapest joyfully washing and cutting her first customer's hair after a month's pause.
A week ago, Hungary became the first European Union member to start inoculating people with China's Sinopharm vaccine after rolling out Russia's Sputnik V vaccine as well, even though neither has been granted approval for emergency use by the bloc.
A new change is that it (AstraZeneca jab) can be given to everyone above the age of 18 without any age limit. There has been sufficient data that proves its efficacy also for older people.
The pandemic is progressing at an enormous pace throughout Europe and in Hungary, the number of cases rises day after day as well, even as 721,000 people had already received (at least) the first dose of a vaccine.
The country aims to give the jab to about 80,000 more people by Wednesday, although several officials have warned in recent days that further restrictions may be needed to curb the pandemic.
"Data show exponential growth (in infection)," Muller told an online press briefing. "The coming weeks will be very difficult."
Western procurement has also increased, with Hungary upping its order of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to 10.87 million from an earlier order of 6.5 million, Muller said.
*It bought 16 billion forints worth of 2033/A bonds at 2.32% average yield, 3 billion forints worth of 2034/A bonds at 2.48%, 4 billion forints worth of 2038/A bonds at 2.8% average yield and 2 billion forints worth of 2041/A bonds at 3.05%.