COVID Gamble
Austria's government is doing away with quarantine, replacing it with restrictions on people's movement which will allow them to work and shop while sick
Servus!
It has been several months since I last wrote to you about the COVID-19 pandemic. First, because Austria’s winter wave, which began at the turn of the year, reached its peak in mid-March, slowly retreating and coming to an end by the close of May. Second, because the country’s vaccination campaign has reached its effective end: There’s no one left to jab. Third, because spring became summer. And fourth, because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent inflationary crisis stole the headlines. COVID-19 ceased to seem important.
That is not to say, of course, that COVID-19 went away. Many of you I’m sure, in spite of your inoculations, will have contracted either BA.2 and/or BA.4/BA.5 since the beginning of the year. (I did, for one.) Indeed, as BA.5 became the dominant strain of the virus in Austria, a new wave took off comparable in recorded case numbers to the fourth wave of the pandemic in November 2021. As of May 24, there were 109,702 active COVID-19 cases in Austria, and the seven-day incident rate per 100,000 people stood at 891.4.
Two things are different about this summer 2022 wave, however, when compared to November 2021 and winter 2021/22. First, because schools are closed for summer, case numbers are higher among those aged 25 to 34 compared to those aged 0 to 5 or 5 to 14. Second, hospitalization rates—and specifically, rates of admission to intensive care—are markedly lower this time around. Currently, there are 88 COVID-19 patients in the ICU, and while that figure may increase over the next three weeks, consider that at the peak of the fourth wave in early December 2021, there were nearly 700 people with COVID-19 who required an intensive care bed.
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The more contagious yet less deadly nature of the Omicron variant in conjunction with vaccination has enabled the government to make it to this point in the summer wave without a lockdown or the health system becoming overrun. This was achieved, it should be said, without a nationwide mask mandate. Only in Vienna is mask-wearing still mandatory on public transport and in hospitals, doctors’ offices, and so on. The major downside to ending the mask requirement was that it exposed employees—especially in retail and hospitality—to the virus, resulting in personnel shortages in key industries.
With this in mind, the government is about to make its biggest gamble yet. Under plans unveiled Tuesday, the requirement to quarantine at home upon testing positive for COVID-19 is to be repealed. Instead, those who contract COVID-19 will be subject to Verkehrsbeschränkungen, restrictions on their movement and whereabouts. Those who “don’t feel sick” will be allowed to leave the house provided they wear an FFP2 mask while indoors. When outdoors and two meters apart from the nearest person, no mask will be required—something relevant to life in the country, perhaps, if not the city. People who test positive will be allowed to go to work with a mask, but not visit healthcare, social care, or educational institutions.
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The practical ramifications of doing anyway with quarantine sound like they belong to the Theater of the Absurd. The new rules are simply unenforceable, since “feeling sick”—the benchmark for whether one needs to stay home or wear a mask—is a subjective judgement. Moreover, if someone has tested positive for COVID-19 but does not present as sick, nothing about them would suggest to law enforcement—or whoever is supposed to be enforcing these rules—a need to wear a mask. By the letter of these rules, an infected person who determines they don’t feel sick will be allowed to go to a restaurant or the swimming pool provided they wear a mask, rhe ORF reports. How one swims or drinks a beer with an FFP2 mask on is anyone’s guess.
Quarantine rules were lifted in Spain and the United Kingdom some time ago, yet many (if not all) experts in Austria remain skeptical about the benefits to doing the same here, fearing the consequences will leave the most vulnerable in society at risk. Governors from the SPÖ-controlled states are also peeved about the new rules, in particular the manner in which they found out about them, namely in the newspapers. Should abolishing quarantine end staff shortages without overwhelming the healthcare system, the government will be vindicated. But as I wrote in the New Statesman back in November when the fourth wave was just about to take off: “Those who declare the end of the pandemic are bound to be made fools of sooner or later.” Fool me once, shame on— Shame on me. Fool me, you can’t get fooled again.
Bis bald!