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Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) emphasized on Thursday that vaccination against the coronavirus will be the “turning point in the fight against the pandemic.” “I am glad that we are now confident that we will start vaccinating in Austria in January and that we will be able to return to normality next summer,” he said during his visit to the biotech company Polymun in Klosterneuburg.
Klosterneuburg vaccine
The next few months will continue to be very challenging, but the “light at the end of the tunnel” vaccine means that Kurz repeated his statement that he had already made several times during the visit to the company that he made together with the Governor of Lower Austria, Johanna Mikl-Leitner . At Polymun, important parts of the vaccine are developed and produced by BioNTech / Pfizer, which, according to the Federal Chancellery, will likely be among the first to receive approval in Europe. “I am very grateful that there is an Austrian company here in Klosterneuburg that produces an essential component for one of the first approved vaccines,” said the head of government. He is pleased that an Austrian company is making a decisive contribution to containing this global pandemic.
Return to normal
When asked about the still large proportion of vaccine skeptics in Austria, Kurz emphasized that it was important for him to state that there is no mandatory vaccination. “There is a great majority of the population willing to be vaccinated. I guess this number will steadily increase as more and more people get vaccinated and it can be seen to work safely. ” With the vaccine, it will be possible to return to normality, he emphasized. The vaccine “will end the pandemic and end the suffering.”
Mikl-Leitner wants to be a “vaccination model”
Mikl-Leitner was also satisfied with the development. “I will set a good example and get vaccinated,” he emphasized. The risk of getting vaccinated is much lower than that of contracting Covid. Especially when you look at the clinics and see “what an incredible amount of suffering you can see there,” then on the other hand, there is hope to get vaccinated.
Responsible for the company: “100% safe vaccination”
Andreas Wagner from Polymun said the vaccine was 100 percent safe, “I guess so.” As for the repeatedly expressed skepticism about RNA vaccines, because they are new, Wagner said they were not. There are also other mRNA vaccines such as flu or rabies, “there were no concerns or problems.” Concerns about speedy approval are also unfounded: “No abbreviations are used,” he stressed. Rather, the work is done faster and in parallel, but there are no compromises in terms of safety.
Large number of unreported cases “not surprising”
Regarding the new study published this Thursday by Statistics Austria and the Ministry of Education, according to which 228,000 people in Austria (in addition to those in hospitals) were infected with the coronavirus (3.1 percent of the population aged 16 and over). more than living in private homes) in mid-November All in all, these numbers don’t surprise you.
Important massive tests
“We have known since the beginning of the pandemic that the challenge of the coronavirus is that many people are infected but do not even know it. That others can infect without even realizing it. That is the insidiousness of this disease, “Kurz said. Therefore, he is not surprised” that there are still a very high number of unreported cases. But it shows even more how important mass testing is. “Because mass testing in In particular, they can unknowingly locate people who are infected. “Then we can prevent them from infecting their friends, family and loved ones.”
