Delta alarm in Austria – on the rise in Austria

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A summit of the Corona Task Force with three ministers is taking place in the federal capital today, Thursday – beginning at 10:00 am. In addition to Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens), Tourism Minister Elisabeth Köstinger (ÖVP) and Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) will participate and talk about the current Corona situation in Austria.

Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) had sent word from New York that the meeting would take a closer look at the topic of “travelers returning to Austria and night-time gastronomy” “in order to take the best possible action here”. And an action seems to be inevitable in view of the current virus situation in the country. Because in the last days the number of new infections rose again clearly particularly by the delta variant.

On Wednesday alone, more than 330 new Corona cases were reported – and that seems to be clearly too high for the government. According to Health Minister Mückstein, 90 percent of the new infections were already due to the more contagious delta variant. “This development is a cause for concern and caution for me. Because the infections will also lead to an increase in hospitalizations,” the minister clarified.

A tweet from Mückstein now hints at possible tightening in Austria. “We must now quickly take countermeasures and are therefore intensively discussing what measures we could set in the short term,” the health minister announced on the short message service Twitter still in the evening.

Together with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Mückstein had also appealed to young people to get vaccinated against the virus. Because especially in discos and nightclubs, the infection figures have recently increased significantly. In Styria, for example, several hundred contacts were sought after a guest infected with the coronavirus had visited a disco.

Younger people in particular are currently infected with the delta variant. “If you now take the whole month of July, then 56 percent of all infections are attributable to the age groups between ten and 30,” simulation researcher Martin Bicher told Ö1’s radio.