Austria has ordered seven million antigenic tests for 50 million euros and its army will carry out a massive campaign of voluntary screening for the coronavirus in order to avoid a new containment, the chancellery announced on Friday.
“We want to allow people to celebrate Christmas in a close family circle […];
mass tests are now an effective alternative to lockdowns for several weeks, ”said Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz.
Teachers and nursery nurses will be the first to be offered to take a test on December 5 and 6 in a hundred dedicated centers.
They will be followed by police officers, then by residents of population areas heavily affected by the coronavirus.
A test before and after the holidays
The 8.9 million residents of Austria, a member country of the European Union (EU), will have the opportunity to take a test during the week before the holiday season, as well as at the start of the month of January.
"We ask the entire population to participate in this national project because while awaiting vaccination, these mass tests are a great chance for Austria to find the path to normalcy", added the conservative chancellor.
The government said it had ordered 4 million rapid tests, the results of which can be delivered in fifteen minutes, to the Swiss pharmaceutical laboratory Roche and 3 million to Siemens.
The campaign run by the army
In October, the Swiss group indicated that antigenic tests make it possible to detect the presence of specific antigens of the disease via a nasopharyngeal swab.
Antigen tests give quick results, but are not considered as reliable as PCR tests, where nasal swabs must be sent to a laboratory for analysis.
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The Austrian armed forces will be responsible for the organizational and logistical management of this campaign which comes after the one carried out in Slovakia, a country neighboring Austria, in Luxembourg, as well as in certain Chinese cities.
No obligation
Austria's constitution does not allow for compulsory testing or preventing residents who refuse to do so from going to work.
Austria, rather spared by the first wave of coronavirus in the spring, was surprised by the virulence of the second wave.
It recorded Friday 224,778 cases of contamination with the new coronavirus and 2,224 deaths attributed to the Covid-19 disease.
On Tuesday, the government decreed a new general containment until December 6, after that of spring.