That is around a third of all deaths, according to a request from NEOS to the Ministry of Health. In 2020, nursing home residents accounted for 42 percent of all Covid 19 deaths, last year this proportion fell, but almost every fourth Covid death was still a resident of a nursing home.
The NEOS had submitted the request to the Ministry of Health, in which the number of antigen and PCR tests carried out in nursing homes as well as numbers on illnesses, vaccinations and deaths of residents and employees of nursing homes were queried. NEOS pandemic spokesman Gerald Loacker calls for stricter measures: “After two years of the pandemic, it cannot be that we are still unable to make the nursing homes safe. It is clear what needs to be done – above all, the staff obviously needs to be tested more closely.” How many tests were carried out in nursing homes across Austria cannot be said, as there is no data from Vorarlberg, Lower Austria, Upper Austria and Salzburg.
The highest number of Covid deaths in Austrian nursing homes was from November 2020 to January 2021, i.e. shortly before the residents received the vaccination. A total of 2,984 nursing home residents died in those three months. The proportion of nursing home residents among the Covid deaths also varies greatly depending on the federal state: in 2021 from 14 percent in Carinthia to 46 percent in Tyrol.
Source: Nachrichten
