For Vienna, Vorarlberg and Tirol Germany already expressed weeks ago a travel warning. If today at 9:00 o’clock the Robert cook Institut will publish a list with the new risk areas, probably further domestic Lands of the Federal Republic will be added. Namely all except Kärnten, which is to be observed for the time being. This is reported by the Salzburger Nachrichten. Into force the travel warning is to step starting from Saturday midnight. The Foreign Ministry is said to have been informed about it by the German Foreign Office on Wednesday.
Salzburg had already expected this. “Unfortunately, the decision comes as no surprise. The numbers in Salzburg are at a high level and the number of infections continues to increase strongly. The top priority now is to bring the infection figures down again,” SN quotes Franz Wieser, spokesman for the state of Salzburg.
The mayor of Kitzbühel generally described travel warnings as “threatening”. Above all the existing German travel warning for Tirol is difficult, Winkler said. “We are of course heavily dependent on the German market,” said the mayor.
“Every travel warning that comes along hurts us economically”, said Labor Minister Christine Aschbacher recently. “The higher the infection figures, the greater the economic damage in a country,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz also noted just a few days ago, referring to Austria’s high dependency on tourism and the high damage caused by travel warnings.
Alarm signal
As a result of the travel warnings regarding Austria in October, the National Bank expects another slump in tourism and a decline in overnight stays of almost 40 percent. “This is an alarm signal for the upcoming winter season and also shows from an economic point of view the necessity to actively contain the recently increased infection figures, as their downward risks for economic development are great,” the central bank said.
If the travel warnings issued by Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries remain in place, the coming winter season will probably see losses comparable to those in October for Austrian tourism.
11,000 new infections in Germany
In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) registered more than 11,000 new infections for the first time. According to the institute’s data, 11,287 people have tested positive for the virus in the past 24 hours. The previous day, the number was 7,830, bringing the number of confirmed coronavirus cases to 392,049.
The number of reported deaths related to the virus increases by 30 to 9,905.
— hp, Sources: Salzburger Nachrichten and kurier.at. Picture: stockilyapp.com
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