The Austrian Health Minister Rudolf Anschober (Greens), who a few weeks ago explicitly ruled out the possibility of another lockdown but announced one shortly afterwards, wants to send Austria into the fourth lockdown with a seven-day incidence of 200 or more.

He told ATV that there will then be an emergency meeting and that an overall assessment will be made in this. The measures could then range from regional lockdowns to an Austria-wide “hard lockdown”. The threshold of 200 new infections per 100.000 inhabitants per seven days would apply to individual federal states as well as all of Austria. Thus, Anschober leaves it open whether he wants to "block" only regions or the entire federal territory.

Threat of lockdown instructions to the governors

When asked about the statement by Tyrolean Governor Günther Platter (ÖVP) that he ruled out the closure of Tyrol, Anschober said that there could be "only a misunderstanding" with the provincial governor. “He must have meant, from today's perspective. We have agreed that we will collect the information by Sunday evening and then make decisions. The Governor of Tyrol, as I know him, is sure to stick to this ”.

Rudolf Anschober immediately lets go of an unmistakable lockdown threat in the direction of the provincial governors, because he cannot rule out an “instruction” for a lockdown in one or more federal states: “This is the control center in this republic for limiting the pandemic Ministry of Health ".