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reThe Foreign Ministry warns against traveling to Vienna. As the ministry announced in Berlin on Wednesday evening, “there is currently a warning against unnecessary tourist trips to the state of Vienna due to the high number of infections.” The German benchmark for classification as a risk zone is 50 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants. In Vienna, according to the Ministry of Health, the value is currently 113 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last seven days. For this reason, the Robert Koch Institute has declared the Austrian capital a risk zone. Budapest has also been a risk zone since Wednesday.
Germany currently defines regions of France, Spain, Belgium, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Switzerland and the Czech Republic as risk areas. Returnees from risk areas should be tested for coronavirus in Germany, unless they can present a current negative test result. As long as there is no negative result, they must go into self-isolation for up to 14 days.
In Austria such a classification was already expected. Switzerland already took this step last Friday, initially only for Vienna. In the spring, by quickly closing public places and resolving crisis communication, the Austrian government was able to largely contain the spread of the virus. Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP), who governs in a “turquoise green” coalition together with the Greens, until recently regularly declared that Austria was doing better than other countries. After the summer holidays, however, there was a very dynamic increase in the number of infections, especially in the capital, but also in other large cities and in some other districts.
“A travel warning for Vienna is a red flag”
A government-introduced “Corona traffic light,” showing district-to-district or city-to-city risk in the colors green (low), yellow (medium), orange (high) and red (very high), was on Tuesday . in seven districts in orange and 35 in yellow. “Orange” are Vienna, Innsbruck, Kufstein, Dornbirn, Bludenz, Mödling and Neunkirchen. In the previous weeks, the mayor and state politicians had fiercely opposed such risk ratings. They are now accepted, also because they have practically no specific and automatically binding consequences. “This is not scaremongering, it is simply a wake-up call,” said Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens).
For the mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig (SPÖ), Germany’s move to declare Vienna a risk zone was “nothing special” even before the announcement. It is a development that affects the whole of Europe, especially urban areas ”. Vienna is particularly well prepared in the health sector. Ludwig is in the election campaign, the Vienna state parliament and the municipal council will be elected in October. The response of Austrian Finance Minister Gernot Blümel, who leads the ÖVP in the capital as the main candidate, can also be seen in this light: “A travel warning for Vienna is a red flag for Vienna as a place.” One should expect more from the mayor than simply dismissing him.
Business interest groups reacted with concern. Austrian Airlines, a subsidiary of Lufthansa, noted that routes to Germany are the most important traffic for them, including transfer traffic. A representative of the interests of hoteliers said: “If Vienna is in the red, I see black for the future of the Viennese tourism industry.” Since the hotels reopened in June, the hotel occupancy rate has only increased slowly, still below 30 percent. A more favorable evolution in reserves has become evident in the coming months, but this trend has already stopped abruptly when the “traffic light” in Vienna turned yellow ten days ago and especially since the Swiss travel warning. A German travel warning threatens to lose 80 percent of the remaining bookings.
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