Coronavirus in Early December | Entry Restrictions May Be Extended

December 3, 2020

• Since the Christmas market on Rathausplatz cannot open, the City of Vienna now wants to move the “Eistraum” forward.
  • Just in time for Christmas, the 8,300 square meter ice rink in front of the city hall is to be opened, the organizer Stadt Wien Marketing announced in a mailing.
  • Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ) said: “Vienna is thus once again sending a strong signal that, even under difficult conditions, joie de vivre, responsible cooperation and a courageous look ahead are possible.”
  • Due to the coronavirus pandemic, special security measures will be necessary, but exact information will be announced later.

• The EU Commission has issued guidelines for its member states of how to best manage the Christmas holidays. The guidelines say:
  1. Imported cases are a very small proportion of detected cases
  2. Travelers are not a high-risk population
  3. Quarantine + testing is not recommended!
     • The Austrian government currently plans to act contrary to all three recommendations with its plan for travel restrictions, mandatory quarantine and testing for travelers from Dec. 19 to Jan. 10.

• The “lockdown bonus” for freelance artists introduced in November has been increased.
  • The one-off payment will be raised from €1,300 to 2,000, Secretary of State for Art and Culture Andrea Mayer (Greens) announced today.
  • The bonus, which is paid out via the social security system for the self-employed, represents a total payout of around €4.3 million.
  • If the bonus has already been applied for, the increase of €700 should be transferred automatically.
  • The increase is expected to become effective at the beginning of the next week.

• Austrian ministries reported 3,969 new cases in the last 24 hours.
  • The number of known active cases fell by -752(-1.5 %) to a total of 50,099.
  • The federal states reported the following numbers of new infections:
    • Burgenland: 100
    • Carinthia: 356
    • Lower Austria: 636
    • Upper Austria: 704
    • Salzburg: 269
    • Styria: 612
    • Tyrol: 351
    • Vorarlberg: 187
    • Vienna: 754
  • The number of daily tests stands at around 31,000.
  • The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 fell by considerable -163 (-3.8%), to currently 4,082.
  • Of those, 668 are in intensive care, a slight decrease by -6 (-0.9%) to the day before.
  • Since yesterday, 92 people have died due to or with the virus. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 3,538 people in Austria have died due to COVID-19. 

• Online registration for the mass tests with interruptions in Austria has been possible for a good 32 hours.
  • So far, there have been almost 100,000 registrations, Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens) announced today at a press event.
  • The website österreich-testet.at is now again available.

• The new re-entry restrictions to Austria over the Christmas holidays will apply from December 19 to January 10.
  • The restrictions apply to travelers coming to Austria from countries with a 14-day incidence of more than 100 (per 100,000 inhabitants).
  • At the current moment, that is all of Austria’s direct neighboring countries.
  • Travelers have to stay in quarantine for ten days and can be cleared after five days with a negative PCR test result.
  • Exceptions apply for commuters and essential workers.
  • The mandatory quarantine does not exempt workers from their job, if need be they have to take holidays for it.

• The CoV pandemic now also clearly shows up in Austria’s official death statistics.
  • For the week of November 16 to 22 (the 47th calendar week), Statistik Austria reported 2,431 deaths. Not since 1978 have so many people died in a single week.
  • This year, a total of 77,662 people have died in the first 47 weeks of the year – 6.5% more than the average for the years 2015 to 2019.
  • The 2,431 deaths reported for the 47th calendar week of 2020 are 58% above the average for this period in the last five years.
  • The highest comparable value for only one week in the recent past was in early 2017, with 2,340 deaths (January 9 to 15). At that time, a particularly strong wave of influenza was raging in Austria.
  • The Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) reported 568 deaths with a Covid-19 infection for the 47th calendar week.

• In Belgium, vaccination against the coronavirus will start on January 5, according to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.

• The Ministry of Finance is extending its program of reimbursing closed business with parts of their lost revenue until the end of the year.
  • “The measures we are taking now will have an immediate impact on whether and how quickly we can reopen in 2021 in all areas,” said Finance Minister Gernot Blümel.
  • For the period of the extended closure in December 2020, affected Austrian companies will be compensated with 50% of their sales in that month in the previous year.
  • The revenue reimbursement will be calculated automatically on the basis of the tax data available to the tax authorities.
  • The basis for this calculation will be the revenue of December 2019. The application is made via FinanzOnline.
  • Businesses can apply starting on 16 December.