Dramatic situation in Salzburg – hospitals are preparing for triage
It becomes uncomfortable for the unvaccinated
Our neighbors in Austria are taking stricter corona measures: Unvaccinated people are only allowed to leave the house for important reasons. With this partial lockdown, the situation should be manageable again.
The state of Salzburg has the highest seven-day incidence in Austria. Now the hospitals there are putting together a triage team that will in future advise who can still be treated in intensive care and who cannot.
Dhe hospital care in the Austrian state of Salzburg is on the brink due to the tense corona situation. The Salzburg state clinics announced on Tuesday that a triage team would be put together because treatment of all patients according to the applicable standards could soon no longer be guaranteed. Triage means that medical professionals have to decide who to help first due to scarce resources. According to the spokesman for the clinics, the team will in future advise who can still be treated in intensive care and who cannot.
In response to the call for help from the clinic operator with its four hospitals, Salzburg’s head of state Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) announced relief measures. “The situation is worrying,” he said during a press conference.
Among other things, some corona patients are to be accommodated in centers for medical rehabilitation. In addition, the population was asked to get a third injection as a booster four months after the second corona vaccination. According to Haslauer, more than a third of all newly infected people are double vaccinated.
With more than 1500 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants, Salzburg currently has the highest seven-day incidence of any Austrian federal state. Upper Austria follows closely behind with a value of more than 1400. Austria’s intensive care physicians therefore called for a short lockdown for the general population in these two regions on Tuesday. The situation is “very, very tense,” said Walter Hasibeder, President of the ÖGARI professional association.
The conservative ÖVP of Federal Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg has vehemently opposed the initiative of Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens) to introduce nationwide nocturnal exit restrictions in the past few days. Instead, the conservative Chancellor Party is relying on the lockdown for unvaccinated people, which has been in force in Austria since Monday. Mückstein wants to reassess the situation on Wednesday.
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