Category: General Interest

Stricter Corona measures will apply to the eastern provinces from Maundy Thursday. A first draft of the ordinance on Easter rest is already circulating in media. Austrian daily newspaper Kurier reports that Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens) will consult with the governors of Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland from 12 noon today, then with the social partners. In the afternoon the regulation should then stand. Originally, the Eastern shutdown is planned from April 1 to 6. As the KURIER learned from city hall circles, Vienna’s mayor Michael Ludwig will demand…

Read More

The container ship “Ever Given” has been stuck in the Suez Canal for about a week. Now rescue teams reported a first success. The container ship “Ever Given”, which ran aground in the Suez Canal, has been freed after being blocked for days. The 400-meter-long vessel has been returned to a floating condition and is being secured, maritime service provider Inchcape Shipping announced early Monday morning. It was initially unclear after the success report when the “Ever Given,” which was heading north in the canal on its way to Rotterdam,…

Read More

Holy Week will be mild and sunny, but it should get colder at Easter. In the middle of the week up to 25 degrees expected, then on Good Friday there is a risk of rain showers everywhere. In Austria, a very mild and sunny Holy Week is in store. On Tuesday and Wednesday, up to 25 degrees are expected in some parts of the country, the experts of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) predicted on Sunday. On Good Friday, however, temperatures will drop somewhat and the risk…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More