AUSTRIA will plunge itself into a nation-wide lockdown from Monday as Covid cases soar and hospital corridors fill with dead bodies.
Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said the lockdown would run for a “maximum of 20 days” and imposed a new mandate forcing all Austrians to get vaccinated by February 1.
Austria registered a whopping 15,145 new Covid cases on Thursday, smashing last November’s peak of 9,586 confirmed cases.
Covid rates have been rapidly escalating in recent weeks as the country grapples with one of the lowest vaccination rates – roughly 66 per cent – in western Europe and among the highest with a seven-day average of 971.5 per 100,000 people.
Experts warn the death toll could reach 2,000 by the end of this week, according to Kronen Zeitung.
This comes as country’s two worst-hit provinces – Salzburg and Upper Austria – have already announced a lockdown from Monday.
The governors of Austria’s nine provinces met with Schallenberg and Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein on Friday ahead of today’s shock announcement.
The European nation had imposed a lockdown for the unvaccinated on Monday but infections have continue rocket well above last year’s dreadful peak.
Last week, Europe accounted for more than half of the seven-day average of infections globally and at least half of the latest Covid death.
In Linz, nurses have resorted to storing dead Covid patients in hospital corridors.
One nurse told Kronen: “There were so many deaths at the weekend that the prosecution was overburdened, we had to put the corpses in the aisle.”
The flood of new Covid patients has become so overwhelming that nurses have reported ditching “normal” caring practices reserved for dying people, according to the paper.
More to follow…
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