Covid-19 in Austria: Anschober Demands Responsibility from Austrians
Austria's Health Minister Rudolf Anschober demands from the Austrian population to refrain from traveling, avoid physical encounters and comply with protective measures around Easter. Since many people want to spend Easter with their loved ones, the already critical situation in many hospitals could worsen by irresponsible behavior during the holidays.
Austria's Health Minister Rudolf Anschober demands from the Austrian population to be especially careful and adhere to the implemented measures against the spread of Covid-19 during the Easter holidays. / Picture: © Bundeskanzleramt (BKA) / Andy Wenzel
The number of infections is increasing massively all over Europe, which can be interpreted as Europe being in the middle of a third wave of the pandemic.
In Austria, the picture varies from region to region, but in general there is a strong rising trend even beyond eastern Austria (with the exception of Vorarlberg).
Above all, the share of the British mutation variant in these rising infection figures is becoming ever greater - it now dominates throughout Austria, and in eastern Austria its share is already 80 to 95 percent, depending on the region.
This circumstance leads to a strong aggravation of the risk situation:
Because the British variant is more contagious, it leads faster to severe diseases and it drastically increases the number of those who fall so seriously ill that they have to be cared for in intensive care units.
As a result, the intensive care departments of Vienna's hospitals are already at the limits of their capacity.
Austria's Health Minister Rudolf Anschober, therefore, states:
"For this reason, we are consistently implementing the measures in districts with a particularly heavy load of over 400; therefore, we are launching the Easter rest in Eastern Austria, and I urgently appeal to the population to refrain from traveling this Easter and to reduce physical meetings, contacts."
Anschober warns:
"Unrestrained travel could lead to that surge of infection that could take hospitals from extreme stress to overload. So responsibility is needed from all of us now - we all need to be part of the solution in the coming weeks to continue to avoid harsh triages in Austria's hospitals."