Restrict the free Corona test offer and thus increase the number of free vaccinations. O-Governor Thomas Stelzer (VP) recently set an impulse in this direction with the announcement that “the free tests will not be able to be maintained permanently”. Which Stelzer largely withdrew yesterday in an interview with the ON news.
“There will also be free tests in the future,” but not as many, because the wave has hopefully passed the peak and “more and more people have been vaccinated,” said Stelzer. While there was also cautious reluctance from other VP-led federal states, the Styrian Governor Hermann Schtzenhfer (VP) openly spoke out in favor of an end to the free tests. He could “imagine a fee-based test offer with a deductible at least as high as the prescription fee (currently 6.50 euros, note)”. There should be exceptions for the socially disadvantaged and people who cannot be vaccinated, said Schtzenhfer, who has already advocated compulsory vaccination.
Tyrol’s head of state, Gnther Platter (VP), can at least imagine a debate about the test strategy in autumn: Because “in the long run it will not work out that everything will always be free”. For Vorarlberg’s Markus Wallner (VP) it is “still too early for chargeable tests”. In Lower Austria you play the ball towards the federal government, which has to deal with the topic in autumn. Salzburg’s LH deputy Christian Stckl (VP) also sees it that way, who also emphasized that the costs for the free tests are also to be borne by the federal government.
In the three SP-led countries, no one wants to know about the end of the free tests. In Vienna, almost 50 percent of the positive cases are without symptoms. They found them through the large screenings, said Health Councilor Peter Hacker (SP). Krnten and Burgenland therefore want to take over the Viennese campaign “Alles gurgelt”.
A clear no to the end of free tests came from O-LH deputy Manfred Haimbuchner (FP), who would see a “mandatory vaccination through the back door” in this step. (luc / wb)
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