New rules for CoV testing over the summer
politics
After numerous CoV measures were withdrawn, test capacities are now also being reduced in Austria. However, the “Salzburg gurgelt” program will continue throughout the summer. And instead of ten free PCR gargle tests every two weeks, from April there will only be five antigen and five PCR tests per person per month.
Eleven days ago, the federal government suspended almost all restrictions. Since then, hardly a day has gone by without an infection record.
Many structures remain over the summer
The state wants to continue to rely on proven structures in the coming weeks and months, says the army officer Peter Schinnerl, also CoV manager of the state of Salzburg: “There are free antigen tests for home use via the pharmacies. We had that last summer. The second is the home gargle test. The federal government informed us on Tuesday that they wanted to continue this campaign.”
Laboratory manager will decide first
The responsible laboratory Novogenia in Eugendorf (Flachgau) has already terminated the lease for the pooling center at the end of March. Now a new area would have to be found and everything rebuilt. The big question is whether it is profitable for the laboratory, says Managing Director Daniel Wallerstorfer from Novogenia: “The number of samples is halved. In addition, there is the summer, when less and less testing is done. These are all aggravating measures that affect all laboratories. We still have to see if we can play a role there.”
According to the state of Salzburg and Labor, the negotiations should take place as quickly as possible.
Continued skepticism from the medical director
Salzburg’s state medical director is skeptical that the free tests will generally be reduced. In view of the record values for new infections and the increased number of hospitals, protective measures should be pushed, says Petra Gruber-Juhasz: “Hand hygiene must be applied. I assume that you always do that. The FFP2 masks should continue to be used, especially indoors. But I fear that it will not work with reason and voluntariness.”
Authorities are expecting a hard autumn again
Neither doctors nor the country assume that the current “infestation” of the population with the omicron variant could prevent an autumn wave. You also want to make sure that the test structure can be started up again quickly.
In the future, the web platform “Salzburg gurgelt” will serve as the basis for a new contract. Then each person can actually only have five tests evaluated per month, even if many are likely to have even more tests at home.