Austria to Lift Lockdown for Unvaccinated Residents
January 26th, 2022Via: Reuters:
Austria’s lockdown for people not fully vaccinated against the coronavirus will end on Monday because the pressure on hospitals has eased, the government said on Wednesday.
New daily coronavirus infections are rising, driven by the extremely contagious Omicron variant. They hit a new record above 30,000 on Wednesday, Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein told a news conference, adding that they would peak in the next two weeks at around 35,000 to 40,000.
The occupancy rate of hospital and intensive-care beds, however, has been falling.
“We came to the conclusion that the lockdown for unvaccinated people in Austria is only justifiable in the event of the threat of an imminent over-burdening of intensive-care capacity,” Mueckstein told a news conference, adding experts no longer saw it as necessary.