Corona explosion, 20,000 dead – that’s the situation in Austria – politics
The massively increasing corona numbers are also an issue in the Council of Ministers on Wednesday. Health Minister Johannes Rauch makes a clear statement on this.
The federal government had already scheduled its Council of Ministers for 9 a.m. today, Wednesday. Shortly before that, at a so-called “doorstep”, Health Minister Johannes Rauch appeared before the press. The Corona numbers, which are increasing massively again, are apparently causing concern that a normal summer may not be possible after all.
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Are there any new measures? Will Rauch bring back the obligation to wear masks sooner? In the run-up to the media event, the Ministry of Health was closed. “Today” reported at this point from 8.45 a.m. LIVE:
No summit in sight
Right at the beginning, the Minister of Health lets the audience breathe a sigh of relief. New corona rules will not suddenly be introduced!
The current increase in numbers is within the forecasts of the experts, says Rauch. But: “10,000 to 15,000 [tägliche Neuinfektionen] will not be the peak,” he warns. Austria would reach that next week. “How far that goes up is still open. I don’t know, I don’t dare say that.”
But he still wants to wait with tough measures: “I don’t see any lockdowns and exit restrictions at the moment. Separation and quarantine management, yes”.
In total, the corona pandemic in Austria has already claimed more than 20,000 lives.
living with covid
By autumn at the latest, however, we would have to expect to wear a mask again. “We assume that we will have more waves to calculate in autumn / winter. It will be about getting out of crisis mode after two years of the pandemic and living with the virus,” stresses the Minister of Health. It should be possible to live with Covid while protecting vulnerable groups at the same time.
There are four scenarios in the fall variant plan. “We won’t have everything easy, everything easy,” says Rauch. But even the extreme scenario with a highly pathogenic variant would probably not occur. It is most likely that BA.4 and BA.5 will remain dominant.
“Health is not an absence of Covid”
The currently spreading BA.4 and BA.5 variants would allow such an open course to be taken due to the low mortality rate. Rauch therefore continues to rely on the personal responsibility of the citizens, since the burden as well as psychological and physical “collaterals” have been high in the last two years: “Health is not just the absence of Covid”.