12 things you probably didn’t know about the Coronavirus situation in Austria since the reopening

The Austrian investigative journalism publication, Addendum, has done a brilliant job in reporting accurate (as accurate as possible – see point 9) and up-to-date info. about Austria’s situation with the Coronavirus.

If you’re interested in knowing just the essential information about the pandemic and how it effects you and the people around you, check out the facts we’ve borrowed from Addendum and a few other publications, below:

1. In just over 2 weeks since people emerged from home quarantine, some regions in Austria have seen no new cases of the virus

You can check the spread on a very cool animated infographic on the Addendum website. 

2. According to Addendum, there is no up-to-date transparent information on how many people are actually being tested in the country, except in Tyrol.

Tyrol is reportedly the only federal state that has transparent reporting on the number of tests being conducted.

3. On average, every infected person has been infecting 0.81 other people in Austria over the last 2 weeks since the reopening

4. Catching public transport isn’t as risky as initially thought. Scientists have said that the risk of infection on surfaces decreases exponentially

You’ve probably heard many scary things about catching the virus, because you touched a door handle, or a pole on the U-Bahn.

However, just because a virus can survive up to 72 hours on metal, doesn’t mean it is still infectious. We’re not saying this means go lick a tram seat – because ewwww, why would you do that, anyway – but what we are saying is that it seems the risks you may have thought you were taking by riding the U-Bahn are not as high as you think.

5. Vienna is the only federal state in Austria that has seen an upward trend of the virus spreading since the reopening of the country

Every other state has seen very low growth rates. You can see the actual numbers on the Addendum’s Coronavirus dashboard. 

6. You don’t have to change the way you do your laundry

Despite all of the news outlets floating this question out there, washing your clothes in some special way will not prevent infection of the virus. Similar to how it’s enough to wash your hands with everyday hand soap, it’s also sufficient to wash your clothes with normal washing powder at the degrees you normally wash at.

7. Factory farming is linked to the increasing risk of us having more pandemics like these in the future

This claim actually comes from an article published in the Falter magazine. So while there’s a lot of blaming going on in the direction of China, the methods of how we produce meat on mass increases the chances of a virus outbreak happening anywhere, including in Austria.

8. Vienna’s total average death rate has (until now) not increased since the Covid-19 outbreak

There’s no denying it – this virus is killing people and it’s damn scary when you look at the numbers. However, interestingly, according to an article in the Kurier, the death rate in Vienna hasn’t increased during the Coronavirus outbreak.

9. Nobody knows anything…still

Nobody knows if the published numbers are correct. Nobody knows when exactly there will be a vaccine. Basically, nobody knows anything, because there isn’t enough data and research out there about the disease, yet.

So, do keep this in mind when scanning through the facts of this article – these are only the accepted facts for now – as more is learned about the virus, these could change.

10. You can’t trust the numbers…including those coming from the Austrian government

As we said in point 2, the number of people being tested is not clear and is information not even available to Austria’s ministry of health, according to Addendum.

As the disease’s symptoms can be very mild, and almost undetectable for some, this means many cases are simply not diagnosed. This obviously means that the number of confirmed cases are only a fraction of the actual number of cases.

To get a clearer and more accurate picture of what situation we’re in, a lot more testing would need to be carried out.

11. If you present any of the respiratory symptoms of the disease, you now will be accepted for testing in Austria

Before mid-April, it wasn’t easy to qualify for a test in Austria. You had to be exhibiting symptoms from the disease and you had to have been in one of the high risk regions of the world in the last two weeks, or have been in contacted with a person that was confirmed infected. This was due to a worldwide shortage of tests.

However, things have now changed and you will be accepted for testing if you display any of the respiratory symptoms: coughing, sore throat, shortness of breath, inflammation of the upper respiratory tract, or sudden loss of taste, or smell.

While we recommend keeping your diet of Coronavirus news to the bare essentials as to not overwhelm yourself, if you are interested in checking out some more reliable information about the virus in Austria, we’d recommend you check out Addendum.