Category: General Interest

According to some health care experts, the Eastern Lockdown announced on Wednesday will probably not be enough to bring about a real turnaround in the overburdened intensive care units. That’s because it comes too late and is too short, virologists and epidemiologists as reported by the Austrian Press Agency (APA) on Thrusday. APA reports that the epidemiologist Gerald Gartlehner criticized the measures in the east for coming too late and lasting too short. Gartlehner assumes that after the Easter lockdown from April 1 to 6, we will seamlessly transition to…

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Of the nearly 450 million EU citizens, 62 million have now been vaccinated at least once against the coronavirus. 18.2 million people have received their second dose. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented the figures today at the EU summit. The EU countries have received around 88 million vaccine doses from the pharmaceutical companies so far. At the same time, 77 million doses have been exported from the EU since December 1. Of the exports, the U.K. alone received 21 million doses, including one million from manufacturer AstraZeneca…

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What Health Minister Rudolf Anschober announced together with the three state heads on Wednesday evening sounds like a “nightmare” for trade association head Rainer Will. An Easter shutdown in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland from April 1 to 6. In addition to hairdressers and masseurs, stores will also have to remain closed. The trade association has already extrapolated what this means for its retailers: “A loss of sales of around half a billion euros,” says Will. After all, around 10,000 stores in three Austrian states are again affected by the…

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50 percent of Austrians have been buying more online since the start of the Corona crisis than before. Of these, in turn, 66 percent said they would continue to do so in the future. According to an Austria-wide survey by idealo.at, for 68 percent of all online shoppers, one reason why they will continue to shop digitally is that they are not tied to opening hours. Almost two-thirds of all respondents cited the fact that the online range is larger, shopping is more relaxed and stress-free and that products do…

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The number of COVID patients in intensive care units, continues to rise and has once again climbed to a new high. According to data from the Ministry of Interior and Health, 176 people are in intensive care units in Vienna’s hospitals, eight more than Tuesday. The British variant now accounts for 90 percent of the infection incidence in Vienna. In recent days, the Vienna Health Association has repeatedly drawn attention to the seriousness of the situation in the hospitals. For example, a spokeswoman recently warned that resources were visibly being…

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Due to the sharp rise in the number of infections in the three eastern provinces, the government, together with the provincial governors, has agreed to tighten the Corona prevention measures for the Holy Week and Easter for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland. The bishops of the dioceses of Eisenstadt, St. Pölten and Vienna then decreed on Wednesday, in view of Holy Week and the beginning of the Easter season, that public religious services may only be celebrated under the strictest and most carefully perceived preventive measures. This was preceded by…

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The Austrian Bishops’ Conference has reacted to new government requirements that allow regionally autonomous approaches to Corona control. While it was already stated that the respective local bishop could issue detailed regulations for parishes in a region or, if necessary, for his entire diocese, the new framework order, which was published on Tuesday, March 23, at www.bischofskonferenz.at/behelfe/corona-rahmenordnung, states that a bishop must make these adjustments following the state legal situation. Literally, a footnote to the framework states, “If regional tightening of the state legal situation occurs, the diocesan bishop must…

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Corona measures in the eastern region are to be tightened. There are plans to extend the Easter vacations in schools, as well as an “Easter rest” in trade. The rules of entry for commuters will also be tightened. The increasing load on intensive care units is now leading to stricter Corona measures in the eastern region. According to information from the APA, school vacations will be extended by one week or there will be a switch to distance learning. In addition, the trade will close in a kind of “Easter…

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A drug combination is effective against coronavirus, according to new study data from Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche. An antibody cocktail of Casirivimab and Imdevimab reduced hospitalizations and deaths by about 70 percent, Roche reported. In addition, the therapy developed by Regeneron led to a four-day reduction in the duration of symptoms, it said. The study results would be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The cocktail of casirivimab and imdevimab also met all key secondary endpoints in the study, called Regn-cov…

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