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Still a role model in spring, now a troubled child: Austria’s Federal Chancellor Kurz corrects Corona’s course and decreed an emergency stop amid a “soft” lockdown. The price of a political odyssey.
Sebastian Kurz doesn’t like to do that and wants everyone to know about it. For the second time in two weeks, Austria’s Federal Chancellor has announced a blockade, only this time a “real” one, a tightening of the soft blockade that has been in place for ten days: starting Tuesday, stores will be closed, schools will be closed, dismissal is only in exceptional cases. permitted.
“As you know, I have always been in favor of tougher measures,” Kurz said on that memorable Saturday afternoon in Vienna. Then it was the others who waited too long, now the confinement is “necessary”, as the Chancellor says: “This is the only way to avoid excessive demands on the health system; this is the only way to save Christmas.”
The numbers are dramatic: more than 7,000 new infections a day, an excess mortality rate of a quarter. The seven-day incidence of 554 per 100,000 inhabitants makes Austria the sad leader of the Crown in the world. What did the government do wrong? He wants to know a journalist. He briefly ducks under the question. Even if he and his government colleagues don’t want to talk about their own mistakes: Austria’s ordeal since the summer speaks for itself.
Ischgl? Munich!
In the first wave, Austria was one of the first countries in Europe to crack down and quickly control the infection situation. And Kurz made sure everyone noticed: in April he held a public conference from a few small countries that were able to keep the numbers down. Their name, made up in the PR machine behind Kurz: the “smart countries.”
German media admired “Knallhart-Chancellor” (“Bild”) for his “clear communication” (“Welt”), with “Maischberger” Kurz slipping into his favorite role as a doer from which Europe and especially its German neighbors can learn. . Ischgl? Just a scapegoat, said shortly before a German audience of millions that the virus had immigrated from China, and anyway: he had read that Munich was the true center.
Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announces the closure.
(Photo: dpa)
As it is known that the revenge for Markus Söder is the white sausage, the Prime Minister of Bavaria will have enjoyed his appearance in “Anne Will” in early November. “Austria was once before Germany with the measures for a while, we were able to copy a lot there,” Söder said. “But now they hesitated for a long time, they had a problem with the masks. And now they had to do the same very sharply and dramatically.” From manufacturer to warning example in just half a year, how did that happen?
Without RKI, without Drosten
That Saturday afternoon, the “virological quartet”, as Kurz is called and his three companions Rudolf Anschober (Minister of Health), Karl Nehammer (Minister of the Interior) and Werner Kogler (Vice Chancellor), did not find out about the problems or about the reasons. Not a word about contact tracing that hasn’t worked for weeks. Only 23 percent of infections are still traceable. Not a word about a new testing strategy: about a fifth of the tests are positive, indicating a large number of unreported cases.
But the government implicitly admitted a mistake. Three hours before the politicians, three doctors marched and described the situation in the hospitals in impressive words. The health system is “at full capacity,” said Susanne Rabady, vice president of the Society for General Medicine.
The fact that hardly any Austrian knows about Rabady and the two experts by his side is part of the problem: Austria does not have the Robert Koch Institute, nor Lothar Wieler, nor Christian Drosten, nor an independent authority classifying the pandemic for the population. Kurz and his colleagues never revealed what expertise they trust. Instead, it was always the Green Health Minister, Rudolf Anschober, who even today handled the infection curves on A2 paper strips that no one can see with the naked eye.
Corona is over, Corona is not over, Corona is over …
Sebastian Kurz did not rely on statistics anyway, but on martial rhetoric: “Everyone will know someone who has died from Corona,” he said in March, speaking of 100,000 deaths that would have occurred without the first lockdown. This turned out to be a scare tactic among the population. Especially since Kurz kept changing his message: on June 13, he stated that Corona ended up on his Facebook account: “Having survived the health consequences of the crisis, we now have to stimulate the economy in Austria again in view of the global economic crisis, “he wrote. .
Two months later, in an interview with “Krone”, he warned of “worrying numbers”, only to see “light at the end of the tunnel” two weeks later. Meanwhile, his health minister, Anschober, regularly proclaimed “crucial days” in April, May, June, September, and so on. also last again.
Traffic light chaos and election campaign
His government barely implemented drastic measures, for which Kurz always wanted to be in favor, and often too late. This was particularly evident in education: schools started the new school year without a visible concept, without technical ventilation systems, without FFP2 masks for teaching staff, without divided classes, now they are closing.
The long-announced “Corona traffic light” drew applause in Germany, but chaos in Austria. For weeks, the politically busy traffic light commission struggled to switch to yellow or orange. In fact, the rankings had no consequences because the federal government decreed measures at the national level bypassing the federal states in September. Amid the confusion, the Minister of Education came up with the news that schools had their own traffic lights that no one had ever heard of before. Even the initial orientation character of the traffic light is out of fashion with increasing numbers: since the end of October, the whole of Austria has been lit red.
To make matters worse, the ÖVP-led government used the pandemic for the election campaign: before the elections in Vienna in October, the chancellor and his ÖVP colleagues in government criticized the SPÖ-led federal capital for keeping silent on the situation in the states governed by the ÖVP. you. Since the electoral battle was fought, the government has treated Vienna like any other federal state.
However, the government has dispelled a point of criticism: the second “real” blockade will not be approved by parliament. Parliament’s main committee has yet to approve what is seen as a formality. At least the SPÖ and the liberal Neos have announced their approval, although, as Neos boss Beate Meinl-Reisinger put it, “for the last time.” She demands what Kurz and his “virological quartet” have yet to come up with on Saturday: a clear plan on how a third lockdown can be prevented. If the Federal Chancellor had to proclaim this as well, he could no longer simply ignore questions about his own responsibility.
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