As in spring 2020, the virus is currently spreading rapidly, especially in the country’s ski areas. In Flachau, where the women’s World Cup night slalom is scheduled to take place on January 11, the seven-day incidence in the morning was 7,627 – a value at which other Salzburg municipalities had long since been placed under travel restrictions by the end of October . But the mayor of Flachau, Thomas Oberreiter, tries to calms down. On the one hand, you have to put the numbers in relation. “We have a good 3,000 inhabitants, but currently there are 15,000 to 16,000 people in the town with guests and staff. We are a small town at the moment,” he told the APA. On the other hand, not a single one of the 230 active cases currently needs medical treatment. “Half of those affected, usually young people, are also without symptoms.”
Oberreiter is convinced that the number of infections is also likely to be similar in other tourist destinations. In Flachau, however, more tests are being carried out. “We have our own test center, where many people who have recovered or have been vaccinated can be tested regularly – for example all ski instructors,” says Oberreiter. Around 60 percent of those infected are tourism workers or ski instructors, and around 40 percent are local people.
The high number of infected people is problematic for the companies in Flachau. Several inns had to close due to a lack of employees. “The ski schools also run in emergency mode, there are no more group lessons,” reported the local chief. “It would therefore be important to shorten the quarantine period or – if no symptoms occur – to eliminate it completely.”
“We are discussing whether we should cancel the race”
Coronavirus and Omikron variants also hover over the night slalom on January 11th: “We are discussing whether we should cancel the race,” said Oberreiter, who is also the president of the organizing committee. But he thinks that the World Cup is safe without a spectator, also because the entourage moves in shielded areas. “A few runners have recently been infected, but a strict Covid concept should make it possible to carry out the event.”
It is unclear how many tourists or tourism employees are currently infected in the state of Salzburg. According to reports, many guests should not even be tested during their stay at the risk of quarantine. If vacationers still test positive, they are sealed off in their rooms – or they travel home by car without stopping. “But there are a number of cases where this is not so easily possible,” said health officer LHStv. Christian Stöckl (ÖVP) in an APA conversation on Wednesday.
If the test is positive, air travelers will not be taken on the plane. The room in the hotel is usually given again, and in some accommodations the construction makes it difficult to isolate people well. “We have to take precautions here,” said Stoeckl. “Unfortunately, we have no experience of how high the demand will be. In the previous year we prepared two hotels as quarantine quarters, but then there was no season.”
Smaller and vacant hotels as quarantine quarters
The idea of converting the spa center in Goldegg into a hostel for tourists who tested positive was abandoned after protests by the ÖGK landing site, said Stöckl. The house needs this for rehabilitation after operations, for example. “But we want to finalize 70 to 80 units this week, where we can accommodate infected holidaymakers in January and February.” Several smaller and vacant hotels are to be converted – especially since the country’s currently only quarantine area in Tamsweg (Lungau) is only available until the end of January. According to the operator, the Red Cross Salzburg, 16 of 76 beds are currently occupied, but not exclusively by tourists.
The health authorities in the state reported 1,587 new cases on Wednesday; in a comparison of the federal states, Salzburg again has the highest seven-day incidence in Austria. The front runner among the districts is Pongau with 1,677, followed by Lungau with 1,173. In 30 of the 119 Salzburg municipalities, the incidence is over 1,000. The country announced that the situation in the hospitals was still stable. A total of 60 Covid patients were in the hospital on Wednesday morning, 17 of them in the intensive care unit. However, according to experts, many new infections only have a delayed effect on hospital occupancy.
Source: Nachrichten
