But tightening: Mask requirement indoors returns

The big openings are barely two weeks old, now things are tightening up once more. The forecasts have changed, Rauch argued at a press conference on Friday. In the next two weeks there will continue to be high numbers of infections in Austria, “50,000 plus a day”.

Now you can see in hospitals and nursing homes that operations can sometimes only be maintained with difficulty, said Rauch following discussions with hospital directors and the social welfare councilors responsible for nursing homes. These talks filled him with concern, said Rauch. You can see that the intensive care units are not overloaded, but the normal wards are already busy. The big problem, however, is the lack of staff, which is also due to the quarantine rules – currently you can take a free test following five days.

Statement by Health Minister Rauch

A tightening of the CoV measures in view of the heavily burdened hospitals is imminent. The FFP2 mask requirement indoors will return in the middle of next week. This was announced by Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens).

Regulation probably by Wednesday

Therefore, according to Rauch, there is a need for action on two levels: First, the obligation to wear masks indoors will be reintroduced. Rauch emphasized that it makes sense to wear a mask wherever possible – for example at work – no matter where you are. The desire for stricter regulations came from Salzburg, Vorarlberg, Upper Austria and Vienna, among others. The minister made a recommendation for the home office.

Second, quarantine rules are to be relaxed. For example, employees in hospitals and other health facilities should go to work with a mask under certain conditions or the quarantine period should be shortened.

To this end, work is to be carried out over the weekend on a “very precisely worded regulation”, according to Rauch. He hopes it will be ready by Wednesday. A new campaign will also start on Monday to increase vaccination numbers.

Rauch ruled out retaining the previous test system – and thus turning away from the planned reduction in free tests. He is not someone who announces a test regime and then changes it once more three days later. “It would have been really bad to go back to zero,” he added. The system has to be elastic so that it can be started up once more in the fall if need be. Rauch did not say on Friday how the mask requirement in school was. He still has to coordinate this with the Ministry of Education.

Foitik justified GECKO’s exit

Rauch also confirmed the departure of Federal Rescue Commander Gerry Foitik from the GECKO. Foitik himself justified his departure from ZIB2 not only with the “occasional” impression that GECKO was instrumentalized by politics. The first reason he gave was that in his Red Cross function he was oriented towards empathy and solidarity with the weakest – but at the moment “it is often only acknowledged with a shrug” that around 200 people die of CoV every week. In addition, it had become clear to him that the energy put into GECKO “was not in any reasonable proportion to the effect”.

Foitik to GECKO exit

Lately things have been seething in the GEKO commission, the members no longer want to serve as a fig leaf for the government. And Federal Rescue Commander Gerry Foitik from the Red Cross has since left the advisory board, he talks regarding it in the ZIB2 studio.

In the state-wide Covid crisis coordination, the resentment among the consulted experts had recently increased. Many considered the deliberations to be a fig leaf of politics, which then often decided differently. The molecular biologist Andreas Bergthaler told the “Wiener Zeitung” in advance: “Some people are very displeased with GECKO – including me – at how things have been going in the last few weeks.” Some considered resigning their positions.

debate

How high numbers of CoV infections can you control?

Foitik actually did that on Friday. He thanked Foitik, said Rauch, and apologized to GECKO “for some of the displeasure that arose”. In the future, no responsibility will be shifted, GECKO makes recommendations and politicians decide and then bear the responsibility. He asked the Commission for a leap of faith, said Rauch. Foitik’s successor will be discussed in due course.

Rauch had previously announced that he wanted to “tighten” the previously installed CoV committees. On Friday he also said that he wanted to put GECKO on a new footing. There are three bodies on the federal side alone, of which at least two have very similar tasks: GECKO, the traffic light commission and the forecasting consortium. They are all supposed to advise politicians, but sometimes have double structures.

Sharp criticism of the opposition

The federal states were cautious on Friday. Vorarlberg’s governor Markus Wallner (ÖVP), chairman of the state governors’ conference, did not want to make a statement on Friday evening in view of the many open questions. Wallner’s office told the APA that they wanted to wait for the specific text of the regulation before commenting.

The opposition immediately criticized Rauch’s regarding-face. “It was the federal government that got us into this mess. Not just any model calculations, ”said the SPÖ. All recommendations warned of a constant drop in the numbers before openings. Vienna’s Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) welcomed via Facebook “that the Minister of Health is now following the Vienna path”. From Ludwig’s point of view, their nationwide reintroduction can also be “only a first step”.

The FPÖ saw the renewed “mask compulsion” as a “surrender to corona hysterics”. The tightening comes “completely free of evidence and without need”.

“Even the third Minister of Health is staggering through the pandemic without direction,” NEOS said in a broadcast. “After more than two years, the ÖVP and the Greens alternately flip the switch once on, once on. What is the goal?

“Lesser Evil”

The trade accepted the return to the FFP2 mask in view of the increasing number of infections – if only “to limit absences among employees”, as Rainer Trefelik, chairman of the federal trade division in the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (WKÖ), emphasized. In a broadcast, he also pointed out that the trade situation, exacerbated by the Ukraine war, was still very difficult.

For the trade association, the new general mask requirement is “at least the lesser evil”. With an FFP2 mask, shopping is safe, as countless studies have shown. The obligation must also apply to night catering, noted Managing Director Rainer Will, “otherwise the measure will not have any effect”. He also advocated a change in the quarantine regulations – following all, retail is also suffering from the loss of staff. Will reiterated the proposal for mandatory free testing for infected employees following five days.