Status: 01/14/2023 5:27 p.m
In Austria, all corona laws are to be abolished in the course of the year. Health Minister Rauch wants to bring the country back to “normal”. Corona would no longer be a notifiable disease.
All Corona laws and regulations are to fall in Austria this year. Health Minister Johannes Rauch told the Kronen Zeitung. The country should go back to normal, said the Green politician. This would mean that a corona infection would no longer have to be reported.
Rauch: Corona wave in China not a big danger
According to the minister, the massive corona wave in China no longer poses a major threat. “We have taken the necessary precautionary measures. I currently see no signs of a major danger.” Wastewater monitoring should remain in place, however. Austria is examining the wastewater from all flights from China for new variants of the corona virus.
Austria well prepared
The Minister of Health does not believe that Corona will disappear, but sees Austria as prepared: “We have vaccinations, we have medication, we are monitoring the variants.”
The population has achieved a high level of immunization, Rauch wrote on Twitter.
Stricter corona rules in Vienna
In Austria, uniform corona rules do not apply in all federal states. Away from the capital Vienna, you hardly notice anything about the Corona measures. According to Rauch, the mask requirement in public transport, which still applies in the state of Vienna, will soon be lifted.
In the rest of the country, the mask requirement was lifted in the summer. When visiting health and care facilities, wearing an FFP2 mask is currently still mandatory. In Vienna, there is also a mandatory test.
The government of the federal state of Vienna has usually been stricter in its corona policy than the federal government. Health Minister Rauch told the broadcaster ORF that he was confident that Vienna would latch into the uniform federal regulations. He wants to talk about it in the coming days. He assumes that all nationwide regulations will fall in the first half of the year.
Free trials will be restricted
The test strategy is also to be adjusted: from the middle of the year, only those who have symptoms will be allowed to be tested free of charge, the minister said: “Anyone who is sick will be tested.”
The minister also announced that he would draw lessons from the past few years and adapt the epidemic law. This is “not suitable for fighting a pandemic,” said Rauch of the “Kronen Zeitung”.