16,000 take the medical admission test

Around 16,000 candidates will take the medical entrance test on Friday across Austria, in Vienna alone there are over 5,000. This is probably the largest indoor event since the beginning of the corona pandemic. For many candidates, the appropriately elaborate security concept is only a minor issue with the APA on-site inspection. It seems to be married anyway.

The subway is well filled at around 8 a.m. when approaching the Vienna Exhibition Center, despite the specially compressed intervals. In the open air, impressive queues of people run along the route of the U2, although the candidates are only admitted every 15 minutes until 9:00 a.m. The queuing in front of the access locks is then quite orderly. Almost all of the masks are worn, and applicants are only allowed to take them off at their seat. The many safety and distance rules that are supposed to prevent infections are in the background for many anyway. What counts for them now is the test that decides whether they can get one of the 740 places at the Medical University of Vienna.

“You can see that the university has thought about something,” says 19-year-old Alexandra, who is taking part in MedAT for the second time. Not only wearing a mask and keeping her distance, but this time the test will be held at single instead of double tables, gives her a feeling of security. A cancellation of the test would not have been an option for them anyway. She did not even think of the possibility of contracting the corona virus at the major event. “That is irrelevant.”

“The desire to study was greater than the fear,” say the parents of candidate Selina from Krems. Like the few other parents who accompanied their children to the entrance test, you will have to stay behind the cordon this time. In any case, she trusts the organization of the university, says Mother Jutta, and you can see that the entrance is orderly and calm. The 22-year-old Ahmed from Syria has no concerns either. The university had clearly communicated in advance how the test would run under these special conditions.

600 employees are supposed to ensure an orderly process, with all of them being ruled out by a test. Before entering the halls, the candidates have to disinfect their hands; a contactless fever is measured. Only seven have a body temperature above 37.8 degrees and have to go to the Corona triage team of the Red Cross. After a new measurement, there is no longer a single suspected case, so the specially reserved hall can remain empty. The call from the medical universities not to come to the exam if you feel sick was obviously followed. Also from Salzburg, the second test site used for the first time by the Medical University of Vienna, no suspected case was reported.

Inside the fair, 1,900 markings will remind you to keep your distance. During the test itself, there is a two-meter distance to the person sitting next to you in each direction, and the ventilation system should ensure conditions that resemble fresh air. Going for a walk during the breaks will not be possible this time.

Leaving the test site after the end of the exam in the afternoon also works this time according to very special rules: This time the test subjects are only allowed to leave the halls in stages. A big difference to previous years, as Vice Rector Anita Rieder described at a press conference the day before. “Usually everything is empty in five minutes.”

Those: APA

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