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Yesterday Wednesday, Tyrol presented the results of his corona mass tests: about 226,000 people followed the call for a voluntary rapid antigen test. That’s a third of those who could have availed of the free offer.
For the Minister of Health, Rudi Anschober (Greens) and the Minister of the Interior, Karl Nehammer (VP), the low participation was an occasion to motivate the population to participate again after the Council of Ministers yesterday. “One test is much better than another block,” Nehammer said, only if many are tested, “can we break the chains of infection.” Anschober also expects that in Vienna, where tests will take place throughout the week, and in federal states like Upper Austria, which only start at the weekend, “participation will increase significantly.”
However, the Tyrolean balance also shows weaknesses: a third of the rapid positive antigen tests turned out to be false. Only 400 of the 620 positive tests could be confirmed by PCR testing.
In Vienna, mass tests are carried out from Friday until December 13. In the first two days, more than half of the positive tests were false, as reported yesterday by the office of the Councilor for Health Peter Hacker (SP). Of 106 positive antigen tests, 45 were confirmed by a PCR test.
There is no alternative to antigen testing
The risk of false positive results is known, so positive rapid tests must also be confirmed by a PCR test, according to the OÖN application from the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES). Rapid antigen tests are not perfect, but there is no alternative to mass screening: “Highly infectious people can be recognized to a great extent. The use of resources and costs would be too high for PCR tests,” he continues.
In Upper Austria, the massive tests will start tomorrow. As of noon yesterday, 93,176 people have registered so far. This corresponds to less than ten percent of eligible test persons.
Testing has already started at the Upper Austrian police: as of yesterday afternoon, eight of the policemen examined in 1835 tested positive.
