While the mandatory vaccination law is being drawn up, Omikron was confirmed in Vienna. Contact tracing is becoming more and more difficult.
Wien. A general vaccination requirement will apply in Austria from February. How this will be designed, however, is still open. Because the second expert summit in the Federal Chancellery, to which constitution minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) and health minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens) had invited, remained without any substantive determinations – the draft law is to be finalized over the weekend and then go into a four-week review.
In addition to Thomas Szekeres, President of the Medical Association, President of the Seniors ‘Association, Ingrid Korosec, Michael Svoboda, President of the Disability Council, and representatives of the Austrian Students’ Union (ÖH) were also present at the expert discussions.
It is envisaged that people aged 14 and over are required to be vaccinated. The President of the Medical Association, Szekeres, can “understand” this age – even if he thinks it makes sense from a medical point of view to also vaccinate children from the age of five.
“Socially staggered” penalties
He also considers administrative penalties for violations of the compulsory vaccination to be justified, but maintains that the amount of the penalty should be “socially graded”. In addition, he would like to see compulsory vaccinations, especially in the nursing and hospital sectors, from now on. Due to lead times, however, he expects the general obligation in February at the same time.
“However, I would like to see all of us vaccinated earlier,” he says. More than six million people in Austria can currently show a valid vaccination certificate. However, only 8.98 percent of the 109,574 vaccinations on Thursday were first stitches – the majority of the vaccinations are currently third stings (74.55 percent).
Burgenland (ahead of Lower Austria and Styria) has the highest vaccination rate at 73.4 percent, while Upper Austria (still) brings up the rear with 62.7 percent. Szekeres spoke out in favor of “stepping on the gas” in the next two weeks.
Sara Velić from the chairing team of the ÖH speaks out in favor of compulsory vaccination as a “last resort”. She criticizes a lack of information campaigns, for the draft law she expects information on exemptions, such as how exchange students are dealt with.
27.5 percent of the cases resolved
Lastly, Szekeres hopes that the current government reshuffle will not affect corona policy. Because while the ÖVP is realigning itself and the framework conditions for mandatory vaccination are being discussed, the first case of the Omikron corona variant (B.1.1529) was confirmed in Vienna. Eight other suspected cases are in the room.
According to Sonja Vicht, spokeswoman for the health service (MA 15), those affected are returnees from southern Africa, and on their way home they are said to have made stops in Mozambique or Zimbabwe. Those affected with mild disease are currently in quarantine. Your tests are sequenced to determine whether it is the Omikron variant, and the Austrian Agency for Food Safety (Ages) also takes care of contact tracing.
In the past, this turned out to be difficult, regardless of the variant. The Ages found that fewer and fewer infections can be tracked. Last week in Austria (excluding Vienna), a low of 27.5 percent of cleared corona infections was reached, in October it was more than half. According to Ages, a success rate between at least 60 and 70 percent is desirable for targeted contact tracing.
(“Die Presse”, print edition, December 4th, 2021)
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