While people have suffered the impact of the pandemic from varying degrees, there’s no denying that weathering a pandemic while living in a city like Vienna is already a putting you at an advantage and in a better position than if you live in some other places in the world. We’re not saying people aren’t suffering tragic consequences in Vienna, but we just want to point out why Vienna’s a good city to be when there’s a worldwide killer virus outbreak happening.
1. Starting with the most obvious – Vienna has an incredibly good health system
Austria has an incredibly good health care system – there’s absolutely no denying it and its high standard has really shown since the pandemic reached Austrian borders.
Let’s take a look at it’s capacity first of all – Vienna has almost 29 intensive care beds per 100.000 people, which is more than 3 times as many as in Italy, for example.
In total, Vienna has over 14.300 hospital beds, with nearly 700 of those being intensive care beds.
2. Vienna’s health care system is accessible for all
Yes, we do pay abnormally high taxes in Austria, but one thing that results from this is an abnormally high quality health care system that can be accessed by all of its citizens. The importance of this for both communal health, social equality and social harmony cannot be exaggerated. Just one glance at what’s happening in the United States and how their health care system is struggling to cope with the outbreak will make you want to write a love song for the Austrian health care system.
3. Vienna is the greenest city in the world, which is a great plus when you can only go for walks or runs during a citywide shutdown
During the shutdown, one of the only reasons you could go outside was to exercise. For many, this was an essential factor that kept them from going crazy throughout the home isolation period. Green spaces are super useful for when you want to calm yourself and your anxiety-ridden thoughts when things are stressful, and it just so happens that Vienna is the greenest city in the world.
The abundance of nature integrated into the city helps even now that things have reopened. It’s been proven that being amongst green space and nature is significantly beneficial for a human’s psychological health.
4. The city’s inhabitants have an abundance of the holy Wiener Wasser
Having access to an unlimited supply of high quality drinking water is a privilege that shouldn’t be under appreciated. Water is one of the basic needs for us humans, and in many countries around the world, the population doesn’t have easy access to drinking water at all, let alone quality drinking water – this can lead to many problems in the midst of a pandemic.
5. Many local businesses launched delivery services extremely quickly
We don’t know about you, but we were amazed at how quickly businesses set up online stores and delivery services after the shutdown was announced. We even made a long, long list, that we’re still adding to as more and more businesses adapt. This meant that you hardly needed to miss out on buying the things you love, from fashion, to meals from your favourite restaurant, to the things you bought for yourself as a little treat to brighten the difficult days.
6. Vienna is abundant when it comes to its access to food
One of the biggest topics that have been discussed since the pandemic turned up has been food supply chains. While Vienna sources a lot of its food from abroad, it also has plenty of fertile land on which fruit and veg is grown in abundance. Just look at the dozens of fruit and veg box delivery companies that popped up during the shutdown.
7. It’s a awesome bike city, so you can avoid the compact and closed spaces on public transport
One thing we love about Vienna is that when we want to get from one side of town to the other, there are countless options to choose from – take the subway, take a tram, take an e-scooter, take a bus, or jump on your bike and cut through the city.
Vienna has an abundance of bike paths for you to ride safely when traveling from A to B, which means that you can avoid the public transport and the confined and closed spaces it comes with. This can only be a good thing to avoid when a population is trying to prevent the spread of a disease.
8. In general, the public of Vienna like rules and behaving responsibly
OK, so we know that many of you when reading this point would be scoffing and letting out a sarcastic laugh, however, just hear us out. While yes, there were the exceptions of people lying in parks when they should have been staying at home and the odd Corona party here and there, the population of Vienna took the pandemic and the government restrictions overall very seriously. Countless reports from the government showed data that suggested people were staying at home and social distancing.
Yes, now that things have reopened, you see a lot of face masks hanging from people’s noses, but what can we say – none of us are perfect and there will naturally be exhaustion with the health precautions out there, but generally, the people of Vienna are sticking to the rules. This is one instance in which we can say it’s good that people like rules in Vienna.
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