Austrian News

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…