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A “Policy Brief”, a statement by Gerry Foitik, Federal Rescue Commander of the Austrian Red Cross (RK), from last Sunday appeared in press reports on Monday.
“Need for clarification”, the managing director of SP, Christian Deutsch, described Foitik’s note as “winter tourism”, according to which the suspension of the tests in the contact persons “1”, that is, the cases of quarantine, would break a “green” assessment of EU partners if the numbers fell.
The Neos expressed their surprise in a broadcast, although they welcomed some of the content of the letter, but also announced a parliamentary question on the Winter Tourism Passage. In an interview with the APA, Foitik denied that it was a manipulation of the crown numbers. It would not be possible to make real comparisons on the ECDC map, which currently shows Austria in the color “red”, with the different testing strategies currently in use.
Comparability issues
The Federal Rescue Commander affirmed that the tests of people who are already in quarantine would not cause any change from the current point of view, because in the first place they do not pose a threat to the population and that the “assessment of the EU partners” i.e. those based on traffic lights, the European Health Agency ECDC, due to the different procedures in the respective states: Slovenia is no longer assessing people who have had contact with infected people and therefore they are quarantined and therefore have a “better” EU assessment than Austria.
Without the “1” contact evidence, the incidence would immediately drop by 500 daily, Foitik said in the report. Deutsch saw this as a “tangible scandal”, while Foitik in this regard considered the possibility of freeing up resources, as can also be seen in the letter that is available to the APA under the heading “Test strategy”: It was ” rapid tests of symptomatic People (….) – Contact persons “1” are sent to quarantine – It is NOT necessary to carry out tests for these, because individually without consequences (a negative test result does not exempt you from quarantine , a positive test result has no therapeutic consequences for asymptomatic people) said in the letter to the crisis team of SKKM.
- Video: Although the government presents a toughening of the measures, the Red Cross faces accusations that the infection figures should be reduced.
SP and Neos ask for clarification
Exceptions were made to not test the “1s” in the case of high-risk contacts, or in the case of a change in quarantine policy from ten to five days. In the case of exponential development, resource increases can not only be achieved in terms of staff, but also through additional digital instruments, Foitik wrote. In any case, the SP demanded that the federal government be fully informed about the objective. “Completely unacceptable” is in any case any attempt to artificially turn the traffic light green by reducing the number of tests on contact persons, according to the SP manager.
Many projects contained in the “Policy Brief” of the Red Cross should be welcomed, said Neos MP Douglas Hoyos in a broadcast on the idea paper for the crisis team. Digitizing the 1450 hotline, for example, has been necessary for some time. However, the fact that there is less evidence related to winter tourism is a source of surprise. Hoyos: “Less testing, in order to keep official infection numbers low, cannot be the solution for winter tourism; specific measures that start with the right gear can be.” The Neos announce a parliamentary question to discuss the background of that passage.
