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Interior Minister Karl Nehammer tightened controls on neighboring countries. Travel should be kept to an absolute minimum. In Bavaria, however, they fear a new “Ischgl effect”.
Vienna. Crown measures in Austria will be relaxed again from today Monday. At the same time, however, surveillance of the external borders will be strengthened. The border controls of all neighboring countries must be “massively intensified”. Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) announced this on Sunday.
“Now we are reinforcing the network of border controls and therefore reinforcing the pressure to monitor compliance with Covid measures,” the minister said. Travel should be kept to an absolute minimum. Nehammer called the border controls a “breakwater for chains of infection that are becoming increasingly dangerous due to new virus mutations.”
So Austria’s neighbor, Germany, was obviously waiting for that “breakwater”. Especially Bavaria. Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) described “the combination of mutation and hasty relaxation” in Austria on Friday as the “worst way”. In the “Bild am Sonntag”, his CSU secretary general, Markus Blume, followed up. He spoke of a “policy of irresponsible openness” and implicitly threatened a tough border regime. “If the Czech Republic and Tyrol are areas of mutation, then you have to determine this and seal the borders. We don’t want a second Ischgl effect for all of Europe. “
This strong criticism of Bavaria was probably also the subject of a conversation between Nehammer and his German counterpart on Sunday. After all, Horst Seehofer (CSU) himself hails from the Free State. After the phone call, Nehammer spoke of “trusted cooperation”. Talks will also be held with interior ministers from other countries.
However, concerns about the further spread of the South African variant of the corona virus, which is rampant in Tyrol, are also large within Austria. For days, there has been a state lockdown or local lockdown extension in the room. Sunday should be “the balance day”. So yesterday there were “permanent talks.” Countless phone calls have already been made in the morning. In the afternoon the Ministry of Health, the Federal Chancellery, the state, and experts met in a videoconference. The deliberations took a long time. A decision had not yet been made when this number went to press.
In any case, a wide resistance has formed in Tyrol itself. Provincial Governor Günther Platter (ÖVP) already rejected the isolation of Tyrol on Friday. “The data doesn’t provide that,” he said. During the weekend he received broad support from the local presidents of the Chamber of Labor, Agriculture and Commerce. All members of the Tyrolean ÖVP of the National Council spoke out against the hardening and demanded the same initial steps as in the federal government.
With the president of the Tyrol Chamber of Commerce Christoph Walser (ÖVP), it almost sounded like a threat. “If something comes from the Ministry of Health, it will really meet us on Monday.”
The number of South African cases has increased
The Health Ministry has delayed the decision in recent days. We wanted to observe the infection situation and the spread of the mutant. Massive testing has been expanded in affected regions. The number of people infected with corona in Tyrol decreased again from Saturday to Sunday. The last time was 1,170. However, the number of cases in South Africa has increased. On Friday there was still talk of 75. On Sunday 165 were confirmed, eight of them still positive.
