Category: General Interest

The government is apparently planning to relax the rules at Easter. The rules will be based on those that were in place at Christmas. Chief Medical Officer Katharina Reich presented plans to that effect to the Traffic Light Commission on Thursday, according to meeting minutes that became public on Friday. Religious events are to be held outdoors – where possible. Nighttime curfew restrictions had been lifted completely on Dec. 24 and 25. In addition, the contact restrictions were significantly relaxed: a maximum of ten people from up to ten different…

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After the latest planned amendment to the Epidemic and COVID-19 Measures Act passed the National Council’s Health Committee on Thursday with the votes of the ÖVP and the Greens, the corresponding ordinance was also published on Friday, and it will apply from April 11. The nightly exit restriction is still in place. That means: The private living area may be left between 20.00 o’clock and 06.00 o’clock of the following day only for the well-known exceptional reasons. As a result, retailers must also still close at 19.00 at the latest.…

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Messenger drops support for iOS 9 with latest update. Owners of old iPhones will soon have to do without Messenger WhatsApp. From version 2.21.50 of WhatsApp, iOS 10 or higher is a mandatory requirement. This means that the messenger says goodbye to the iPhone 4s, which cannot be upgraded to iOS 10. All those who still use such an old iPhone will therefore no longer be able to use the app. About supported operating systems We provide support for and recommend using the following devices: Android running OS 4.0.3 and…

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Since early March, pharmacies have been offering five free coronavirus self-tests per person per month. The problem, however, is that the tests were out of stock shortly after the promotion started. Even now, they are still hard to come by due to supply issues. But “things are tending to get better,” according to a spokesman for the Austrian Chamber of Pharmacists. Fix seems to be that there should be 3,600 tests this week for each of the 1,400 pharmacies in Austria. The delivery problems and associated delays last week were…

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Last Friday, Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) talked about the distribution of vaccinations in the EU. Individual states would get much more vaccine than others, although this had been pact between the heads of government exactly the other way around. The chancellor said that it had been decided to distribute the vaccine according to the population key, so Austria should have received about two percent of all doses delivered to the EU. In fact, individual countries such as Malta have so far received much more vaccine, others such as Bulgaria…

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Philippine authorities will suspend entry for foreign nationals and returning overseas citizens who are non-Overseas Filipino Workers from 00:01 March 20 until April 19 following an increase in local COVID-19 activity. Exemptions will be in place for 9(c) visa holders and individuals entering due to medical emergencies and humanitarian reasons. Officials continue to enact community quarantine restrictions of various levels nationwide through March 31. The country remains under Code Red Sublevel 2 on its code alert system, indicating ongoing local virus transmission with greater numbers of cases than the government…

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There are currently not only delivery delays for vaccines, but also for the free home tests. Since the beginning of March, a set of five per month should be available in pharmacies. But the tests are out of stock almost everywhere. A look at the ELGA electronic medical record does show a prescription for five coronavirus tests per month. However, it can be difficult to fill this prescription. The pharmacies sometimes take a long time to replenish their supplies: “Sorry, no more free tests in stock today,” is the message…

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Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) has backed the vaccination panel’s decision to continue using the controversial AstraZeneca vaccine. “We trust our experts here, who have made a clear decision to continue using all approved vaccines,” Kurz said at a press conference in Vienna on Tuesday. Similarly to Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens) earlier, he urged a European solution. “This is a patchwork within Europe, which is not ideal,” Kurz said. Therefore, he hopes “that there will be a clarification of this issue quickly,” the chancellor demanded a “clarification” regarding the vaccine…

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The Ministry of Health is currently working on legal foundations that would give vaccinated people “certain advantages” in the Corona lockdown. “We are currently working on the fact that as a vaccinated person you can also have certain advantages in these first steps with the first groups. That means that certain lockdown measures or similar closures do not have to apply to all groups at the same time,” Health Minister Rudolf Anschober let the bombshell burst in the Puls24 “Citizens’ Forum”. In Israel, people who have already been immunized with…

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