Category: General Interest

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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For almost a year, more than 168 million children worldwide have been out of school because of pandemic measures, according to UNICEF. 214 million children have missed more than three-quarters of their classes, the United Nations Children’s Fund reported today. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore called the global lockdown a “catastrophic education crisis.” According to the report, 14 countries were largely in lockdown from March 2020 to February 2021. Two-thirds of those countries belong to Latin America and the Caribbean and collectively have nearly 98 million schoolchildren. In schools, children…

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In Vienna, about 500 people who were on a waiting list have been vaccinated so far. When doses remained, they were contacted spontaneously, APA reports. In Vienna, those willing to be vaccinated can also be put on the waiting list via the online preregistration platform when registering. This means that if doses are left over from a Corona vaccination campaign, they are contacted spontaneously. So far, around 500 people have received an injection as a result, a spokesman for City Health Councillor Peter Hacker (SPÖ) told APA on Tuesday. Registered…

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After the explosive growth during the Corona crisis, the video conferencing service Zoom is expecting strong growth again this year. The company is targeting revenue growth of at least 42 percent for the fiscal year just ended. Investors celebrated the fresh quarterly figures and the forecast with a share price jump of at times around nine percent in after-hours trading on Monday. In the past fiscal year, which ended in late January, sales jumped from $623 million to $2.65 billion (2.20 billion euros). The big question is how much further…

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Since the first relaxations of the current Corona lockdown a good three weeks ago, some 15,800 charges and organ penalty mandates have been laid across Austria for violations of Covid regulations, ORF’s “Morgenjournal” reported. That’s an average of just over 750 police penalties daily. The daily average is thus slightly above the values of last spring from mid-March to mid-May, it said. “In the foreground there is of course the minimum distance, on the other hand, not wearing a FFP2 mask. But we have now also, for example, at the…

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