In a statement after Thursday’s meeting of the committee, the situation is described as “unstable”. It is recommended to write personally to those who have not yet been immunized with invitations to the vaccination. If the number of cases increases, it is advisable to reintroduce previous (unspecified) measures.
The Commission argues with a look at the past. In 2020, the doubling time in the number of infections from mid-October to the end of the month from 20 to seven days developed unfavorably. In light of the increased level of intensive care units in some federal states and the expected seasonal effect, close monitoring of what is happening is strongly recommended.
That is also the reason why the risk level in schools remains at 2 in all federal states. The Commission recommends leaving it there for at least another week. Styria had pushed the committee to level one, which would have made teaching practically like in pre-Corona times possible. There were two abstentions from the decision in the Commission.
Level two, on the other hand, means that unvaccinated students have to continue testing three times a week, while vaccinated or recovered students are not required to test. All children and adolescents must continue to wear masks outside of the class, school events such as excursions can take place, parents’ evenings take place in attendance, but with mask compulsory.
In itself, the situation in the country does not look so bad, at least for the time being. According to the working document of the traffic light commission, the numbers are going down or stagnating everywhere except in Carinthia. The color scheme looks correspondingly positive. Burgenland has recently turned green-yellow and therefore has a low risk of infection, there is nowhere very high risk.
Styria is one of the climbers of this week’s traffic lights, as it joins Tyrol in the yellow zone, which expresses medium risk. The other countries as well as the entire state remain in the orange area, which stands for high risk.
In the meantime, the decisive factor for the coloring is no longer the infections alone, but other factors are included in a risk figure. From 100 you are in the red area of the very high risk. At the moment one is far from that everywhere. Upper Austria has the worst values with 79.3, while Burgenland has 24.0 at the other end of the scale.
Accordingly, Upper Austria remains the problem child. The six districts with the highest incidences are in the state above the Enns. The Innviertel, with the districts of Ried and Braunau, which have the most unfavorable values, is particularly affected.
Also in terms of the risk-adjusted and the raw case numbers, the numbers in Upper Austria are by far the worst. Overall, however, the numbers in the state are stagnating as in Styria. Everywhere else they are falling, only in Carinthia an increase was recorded last week, which is comparatively low at eleven percent. As far as the forecast utilization of intensive care units is concerned, Upper Austria is second behind Vienna.
The list of districts shows that Upper Austria is a problem area. The first six places from the “wrong” side are taken by Ried im Innkreis, Braunau, Kirchdorf an der Krems, Steyr-Land, Steyr-Stadt and Schärding. Only then does Lilienfeld, a district from Lower Austria, follow. Of the 20 districts with the most new infections, there are eleven Upper Austrian ones. In contrast, Oberpullendorf (Burgenland), Völkermarkt (Carinthia) and Oberwart (Burgenland) have the lowest incidences.
There are hardly any changes in the number of cases clarified, which is two thirds nationwide. A good third of the new infections were asymptomatic, i.e. they were discovered almost by chance.
