Category: General Interest

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expects a significant acceleration of the EU-wide coronavirus vaccination campaign. After a slow start in January and February, von der Leyen now expects 50 million doses to be delivered in March and 100 million doses per month from April. Regarding the start-up difficulties in the vaccine supply taken over by the EU, “everyone had underestimated that the ramp-up of a stable mass production is fraught with considerable risks,” von der Leyen said in this regard, among other things, to the daily newspaper “Der…

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The death of a 49-year-old nurse from Lower Austria after a coronavirus vaccination has repercussions. Because remaining stocks of the same batch are no longer vaccinated, numerous vaccinations had to be canceled at short notice on Sunday. The woman died ten days after vaccination with the Astra-Zeneca vaccine. Now the vaccination with the batch number ABV 5300 was stopped by the federal government. Vaccine from other batches can continue to be administered, the state says. However, because remaining stocks of the same batch are no longer vaccinated as a precautionary…

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A good two weeks before the parliamentary election, Israel is striving for another piece of normality. But only certain citizens can enjoy the new Corona freedoms. Restaurants and cafes in Israel have reopened, subject to conditions. For example, only guests with a so-called green pass are allowed to be served indoors. This digital ID card has been issued for two weeks to those whose second vaccination against the coronavirus was at least a week ago, as well as COVID-19 recovered people. All other people are only allowed to be in…

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Within a few weeks, the British virus mutation has asserted itself in Austria and meanwhile dominates. Austria carries out a unique virus screening in Europe – already 43,849 positive samples were examined for suspected mutation (since the beginning of the year, a total of 90,289 cases were confirmed for SARS-CoV-2), meanwhile this is realized for every positive sample. The wild type, strain variant, has declined in Austria from 61.5 percent in calendar week 05 to 36.3 percent in calendar week 08. In parallel, the British variant has gained dominance during…

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Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens) warns of a “pandemic within the pandemic” in view of rising infection figures and more and more cases of Corona mutations. Within a few weeks, he said, the British virus mutation had become established. The so-called wild type, the strain variant, has declined from 61.5 percent in calendar week 5 to 36.3 percent in calendar week 8. The British variant dominates with a share of 58.4 percent. “For Austria, this dominance of the British variant is not good news. It is significantly more contagious than…

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In the fight against the coronavirus, 31,180 people were vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 in this country on Friday, more than on any other day so far. This is according to the latest figures from the Ministry of Health. Of the newly vaccinated, 2,420 received the second dose needed for full immunization. In this regard, 5.99 percent of the Austrian population was at least partially vaccinated on Saturday. If the non-vaccinated portion of the population – those under 16 – is excluded, this would be 6.88 percent. As of midnight on Saturday,…

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After conference with provincial governors and recommendation of national vaccination panel, Chancellor Kurz gives new details. Johanna Mikl-Leitner, governor of Lower Austria, and Styrian governor Hermann Schützenhöfer already made the case for the use of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine in over-65s; since the beginning of the week, the vaccine from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company has already been given to over-65s in Vienna. And since Friday morning it is a done deal. In the morning, the National Immunization Panel (NIG) had also spoken out in favor of the use of Astra Zeneca’s…

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There are now increasing data on the efficacy of Astra Zeneca’s Corona vaccine in people over 65. Until now, some national authorities – including in Austria – had too few data on this. That could change soon, when a large study of the Astra Zeneca vaccine with more than 30,000 participants is expected from the United States in the next one to two weeks. In that study, 20,000 received the Astra-Zeneca vaccine and 10,000 received a placebo. Twenty-five percent of the subjects were older than 65 years. In addition, more…

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Among children, adolescents and young adults, the corona virus has spread particularly strongly in the past week. The information has been announced by the Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES). According to the figures, the groups of 15- to 24-year-olds and five- to 14-year-olds are now ahead of all other age groups, with seven-day incidences of 209.9 and 202.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. A look at the infection figures in the previous week illustrates how much the virus has spread among young people within a week. In the seventh…

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