The new cluster is a “warning shot” for everyone who thought that the crisis was over, says country chief Stelzer.
After a three-digit increase in the number of new coronavirus infections in Austria yesterday Wednesday by 107 cases, the increase on Thursday was 68 newly positive test persons. This was announced by Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens). 42 of these new cases are assigned to an already identified cluster in Upper Austria.
“It has normalized again. But it is still a value that is personally too high for me,” Anschober said at a press conference in Vienna. He compared the new cases with 23 new ones recovered from Covid-19. But also “in total you can see a slight increase”, and that is “nothing we are happy about”.
The recent significant increase in new infections is a consequence of the “quite remarkable” infection center in Upper Austria. The Upper Austrian authorities had reacted consistently and quickly, said the minister.
1400 Upper Austrians in quarantine
According to Governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP), around 1,400 people are currently in quarantine in Upper Austria. Including all those from the cluster, who are associated with the “Church of God Pentecostal Church” in Linz, Stelzer said in a ZiB2 interview on Wednesday: “We hope that we can contain this cluster.”
Stelzer did not accept that the action had been taken too late, since last Friday AGES had already linked the rising number of infections and the “Church of God Pentecostal Church”. The infections were “followed very closely” and the cases were followed up to schools and kindergartens. The country’s employees “consistently” investigated every single case “from the start”.
“Warning shot” for reckless people
That Schools, kindergartens and childcare facilities in five districts – Linz Stadt, Linz-Land, Wels Stadt, Wels-Land and Urfahr-Umgebung – only being blocked from Friday, Stelzer justified with the fact that “organizationally” people want to be given the opportunity to “adapt to this situation”.
The new cluster is a “warning shot” for all those who believed that the crisis was over. Stelzer therefore appealed to continue wearing masks in closed rooms. Events should not take place in the five districts until further notice.
Stelzer did not accept that too little testing had been done in Upper Austria: “in any case” testing was carried out “where symptoms occurred”. In addition, the Upper Austrian test strategy was coordinated with the federal government, said the head of state: “We implement what the Ministry of Health specifies.” Stelzer announced that a test run should now be started again in all nursing and retirement homes.
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