Austria 'gauging the pulse' before significant relaxation of measures

(Patria) - Austria was one of the first countries to introduce restrictive measures that were very effective, so the government of that country decided to gradually ease them. 

Last week, shops such as home and garden stores and bookstores reopened, while the government plans to open museum doors by mid-May.

Austria recorded its first cases of the coronavirus at the end of February, and measures were introduced on March 16, immediately after Italy did the same.

Professor Günter Weiss from the Medical University of Innsbruck, in an interview with Euronews, commented on the 'very early and very strict intervention by the government which truly shut down the entire public system... it was extremely strict, but people got used to it,' Weiss emphasizes, explaining that as a result of the strict measures, a decrease in new cases was recorded after two to three weeks, and 'now we are seeing a constant decrease in the number of hospitalized patients'.

In Austria, the daily average growth of new infections is below 100, which is the lowest average so far.

The total number of infected people in this European country of 9 million inhabitants is 14,795, with 470 deaths.

On Monday, 48 new cases and 9 deaths were reported. The number of new infections has been constantly decreasing since the end of March.

- Our strategy is to continue early detection of cases to encourage the population to seek medical help if they notice symptoms of the coronavirus, as well as to continue rigorous testing with quarantine, explains Weiss, adding that Austria has begun testing employees in nursing homes and hospitals to prevent the spread of infection among the most vulnerable parts of the population.