Enormous increase in new corona infections in Austria

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A sharp increase in Covid-19 infections over the long weekend has further aggravated the situation in Austria as well as in almost all of Europe. While there were still around 18,000 actively infected persons on Friday, this figure rose by 5,000 to over 23,000 by the national holiday on Monday. 2,456 new corona infections were registered in the past 24 hours. In a seven-day comparison, the particularly critical utilization of intensive care beds rose by 30 percent to 188.

“The higher the infection figures are, the more restrictive measures are needed,” said Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) on Monday after the Council of Ministers. He said it was about preventing an overload of intensive care medicine: “The Ultima-Maßnahme (last measure) is a second lockdown,” he said. If the increase continues like this over the next seven days, there would already be 243 intensive care beds next Monday.

The 14-day forecast of Gesundheit Österreich (GÖG) for November 4 sees this utilization rate of twelve percent reached – so there is still plenty of room for improvement, they said. At least the increase in intensive care beds was less than in the number of total patients undergoing hospital treatment for corona: Here, the number rose from 799 to 1,330, an increase of 66.5 percent. Regionally, however, the situation in Vorarlberg already looks critical: According to health state councillor Martina Rüscher (ÖVP), the numbers here have doubled within ten days to over 40 patients in hospital, and it is already being checked daily whether preparations are to be made for the emergency care center.

The number of deaths in connection with Covid19 also increased throughout Austria: At 992, the number of deaths has now almost reached 1,000 and in October alone, almost 200 more have been reported. Seven deaths were reported on Monday by the crisis management team of the province of Upper Austria. The reported cases were between 72 and 95 years old and had almost all pre-existing conditions.

With an average of around 2,300 new infections per day, the number of new infections per day within a week increased considerably, the seven-day incidence of ECDC changed from 191 last Monday to now almost 300 cases per 100,000 inhabitants – “we are experiencing a massive, exponential growth,” the Chancellor said.

There are still several sources of figures on SARS-CoV-2 developments in Austria, some of which differ considerably due to different methods of collection. Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens), however, now announced to the “Presse” that the statistics would be standardized. The Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) are currently publishing figures. “In future, the same figures will be published at the same time. The main source remains the AGES dashboard”, said Anschober.

On Monday, for example, this dashboard showed over 32,000 active cases, a difference of about 9,000 compared to the 23,000 or so figures from the Ministry of the Interior. The explanation: While the AGES figures come from the Epidemiological Register (EMS), the official register, the Ministry of the Interior (BMI) collects its figures during the video conference of the State Crisis Center.

As far as the criminal side of the fight against the pandemic in Austria is concerned, the BMI announced on Monday that since the start of the priority actions on September 24, 87,119 controls have been carried out and 958 reports have been filed so far. There have been 230 of these since last Friday alone.