Decision on lockdown end will be announced next week

Spread the love

Read Time:1 Minute, 49 Second

A decision on the end of the lockdown for vaccinated and recovered persons as of December 12 will be made by the Ministry of Health only next week.
The forecasting consortium will provide an assessment of the coming days, it said. At present, infection incidence is declining, it said. How strong this development is pronounced and whether it is a sustainable trend reversal, however, will only be seen in the coming days, lets the Ministry of Health know. The development is being monitored and the next steps will be communicated next week.

Lockdown extended until December 11
The lockdown currently in force had been extended the day before in the main committee of the National Council until December 11. According to Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein, the future depends on the epidemiological situation. In any case, the lockdown for the unvaccinated will be extended.

Although the West lags behind the East in seven-day incidence, Vorarlberg expects the lockdown to end at the same time. “If the downward trend continues to be the same throughout Austria, it makes sense to proceed in the same way,” it was said on Wednesday in response to a corresponding APA query from the office of state governor Markus Wallner.

In any case, however, Upper Austria will opt out. The local governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) had announced to stick to the original schedule despite the nationwide lockdown, i.e. to keep the country in the shutdown state until at least December 17.

On Tuesday, Wallner had mentioned three conditions that would have to be met for opening steps: for a lockdown to end, there must be a significant drop in seven-day incidence, the forecast for intensive care capacity occupancy must be good, “and the vaccination rate must go up.” Next week, he said, there will be a federal-state summit to discuss the possible end of the lockdown. Until then, the development of the situation will of course be closely monitored and evaluated.

Vorarlberg most recently had a seven-day incidence of 1,261. Tyrol was at 1,124, Salzburg at 1,323. The Austrian average was 894 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.