The PCR test program that has been running in various forms since the start of school ends around a month before the end of school. After Pentecost, antigen tests will only be used if necessary, if infections found elsewhere occur in a class. In Vienna, limited further testing can be carried out on a voluntary basis.
The regular PCR tests started in September. At that time, at least one PCR test per week (in addition to two antigen tests) was mandatory. Later, two PCR tests per week (in addition to an antigen test) were prescribed, although problems with the test provider made the changeover slow. After Easter, a PCR test was used again, with antigen tests only being used on an ad hoc basis (i.e. when infections were detected in the class).
An exception was Vienna, where PCR tests were increasingly used from September and a different test system is used with “Alles gurgelt” (only from middle school/AHS lower level, later also at elementary schools). More PCR tests (and fewer antigen tests) were therefore carried out in the federal capital.
On Monday, the students in Lower Austria and Burgenland will be testing for the last time, followed by their colleagues in Carinthia, Salzburg, Tyrol and Vorarlberg on Tuesday and Upper Austria and Styria on Wednesday. In Vienna it depends on the respective school when the obligatory “final gurgler” takes place.
The federal capital will then go its own way: the drop-in boxes at the schools will continue to be available there. City Councilor for Health Peter Hacker (SPÖ) announced this. The usual pick-up regime also remains in place. Pupils can use it to continue to hand in their “everything gurgles” tests at school on a voluntary basis.
However, according to federal regulations, only five samples per month are evaluated. Only in the case of tests ordered by the authorities, i.e. in suspected cases, can tests be carried out beyond this quota. Hacker made no secret of the fact that he would have liked to keep the school tests in their current form. The rules of the game had been changed out of nowhere, he criticized.
“It doesn’t hurt to protect our kids a little bit,” Hacker said. The screening in the school offered a good overview of the infection process. There are currently 200 schools in Vienna with cases of infection, he pointed out. It is also completely open how things will continue in the fall. The Minister of Health is steering into a “wall of fog”, he warned of a difficult situation at the start of school.
During this week’s test run, 784 infections were discovered in schoolchildren across Austria. That is significantly less than in the previous week with around 1,350 – before that the numbers had only decreased to a significantly lesser extent. For comparison: In March there were up to 20,000 positive school PCR tests per week (albeit with two test runs).
It is not yet clear whether and to what extent the tests will be resumed in September. That depends on the infection situation, said Education Minister Martin Polaschek (ÖVP) at the beginning of the week. They have already been advertised with this restriction.
Source: Nachrichten
