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The Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, wants to carry out massive tests, the opposition accuses him of total failure. Meanwhile, before the harsh closure, people flock to the stores.
The Austrian interior minister tried his hand at the dialect, perhaps because bad news, packed close to the people, sounds a bit less threatening. Karl Nehammer said, “Everyone tends to stick to the measures,” but that’s necessary.
What really gets Austrians on their nerves, translated into High German, is the second blockade that the government announced in Vienna on Saturday night and that will start on Tuesday night. Close all stores except basic suppliers, pharmacies and banks. External contacts outside the family should only be allowed with “a partner, close relatives or important reference persons”. It is best for Austrians to leave home only in an emergency, for individual sports or short walks, or to buy food. They should work at home as much as possible.
The message from Green Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, who is a very frequent speaker, was unusually short and sweet: “Stay home to the best of your ability.”
The highest rate of new infections worldwide
Just a few weeks ago, the ÖVP coalition and the Greens said that radical measures with curfews and school closures, as already implemented in many EU countries, should be avoided and hopefully could also be avoided. But now these radical measures have become inevitable.
With around 7,000 cases per day, Austria has the highest rate of new infections in the world. In some federal states, hospitals are working on the brink, intensive care units are full. If this continues, we hear from Vorarlberg, for example, that seriously ill people will soon have to be turned away and important operations postponed.
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who had boasted in late spring that the country had come through the crisis particularly well and had seen “light at the end of the tunnel” after the first wave of summer, had to admit the weekend in view of the second wave: the situation is more than difficult: if the contagion figures in the new blockade, which expires on December 6, do not drop, “it would be a disaster.”
The desire to buy increases with discounts
But first of all, after a brief drop in recent days, the numbers could even rise. The country has been in partial lockdown for a few weeks, restaurants, concert halls and museums are closed, but shops are open. When it became clear that the next full closure would take place in a few days, people went back into the stores. Large retail chains increased the desire to shop with discount campaigns and there were queues in pedestrian areas.
The government appealed to common sense and alluded to the indignation of many opposition politicians, that you can only have as much political success as the behavior of citizens allows. Since the blame for the fortuitous action is passed to the population, it was said from the SPÖ.
When asked in interviews if the new blockade would not come too late, Chancellor Kurz stated in ORF on Sunday that the population probably a few weeks ago “was not ready to participate.” Now it is important to proceed with such care and care that it can come to a time when a vaccine is available to everyone.
Kurz announced massive tests based on the Slovak example for December. The chancellor did not want to acknowledge that the government had made mistakes. According to Kurz, “it was not a mistake” that “we had a relatively normal summer, that we were able to live a relatively normal five months.”
The opposition accuses the government of total failure
Naturally, the opposition sees it differently. Chancellor Kurz has neither a plan nor a concept. The fact that the country is currently in such an unexpectedly bad position is not the fault of the citizens, but of a divided government that focuses mainly on self-public relations. The political controversy ignites especially in educational policy. Schools in Austria will switch to distance education again from Tuesday. Schools and kindergartens remain open for educational support and care.
Neos and SPÖ are now harshly criticizing that too little was done over the summer to ensure that classroom teaching in schools can continue even with the growing number of corona infections. The government’s suggestions to parents about how they should learn with their children and that children need a place of retirement are simply too far from life.
SPÖ boss Pamela Rendi-Wagner called the three-week lockdown an “admission of guilt for the total failure in managing the crown.”