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Corona vaccination in Austria: The ORF wants to motivate more people to spades
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Vadim Ghirda / dpa
The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) wants to raise the vaccination rate in the country with an unusual campaign: an vaccination lottery.
Participants can win prizes such as a prefabricated house or a car, announced the public broadcaster.
Anyone who has been vaccinated against Covid-19 or is still getting vaccinated can take part.
When registering at werimpftgewinnt.orf.at, no proof of vaccination is required; only the winners drawn at the end of the drawing have to show it.
According to the ORF, all persons living in Austria who are older than 18 years and who were or will be vaccinated between October 1st and December 20th are eligible to participate.
It does not matter whether it is a first, second or third vaccination.
Around 1000 non-cash prizes provided by Austrian companies would be raffled among the participants.
According to the broadcaster, the prices include a single-family home made of prefabricated parts, an electric car and kitchen equipment.
The winners are to be announced on December 24th.
ORF General Director Alexander Wrabetz said the ORF journalists were doing their best to inform the people in the country about the coronavirus on the basis of scientific findings. "But education and information are sometimes not enough to anchor the indispensable contribution of vaccination to fighting pandemics to as many people as possible," said Wrabetz. The lottery should be an additional motivation for vaccination.
Austria has recently increased the pressure on unvaccinated people.
There is a 3G rule in the workplace and a 2G rule that excludes unvaccinated people from large parts of public life.
Given the high seven-day incidence of 1,100 per 100,000 population, everyone has been locked down since Monday.
While this measure is expected to end on December 13 for vaccinated and convalescent people, it will then continue to apply for unvaccinated people indefinitely.
On Tuesday, the number of daily new corona infections in the country fell below the 10,000 mark for the first time in two weeks.
According to the authorities, 9513 cases were recorded within 24 hours.
Most recently, up to 16,000 new infections were registered.
Despite the decline, the number of beds occupied by Covid patients in the clinics continued to rise.
ptz / dpa
