Gargling and off to the next supermarket: At least that’s still possible in Vienna until the end of March. With Omikron, however, the federal government only wants to test certain groups of people free of charge, said Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens): “Undirected testing, especially of fully immunized people, must be questioned.”
That could also mean the end of the Viennese all-gargle system. Because the federal government bears the costs in the three-digit million range. Vienna does not want to step in itself, said Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ): “If the federal government decides not to finance this anymore, then unfortunately we will have to end it.” But the broad testing not only prevents many infections, but also shows new variants quickly. Ludwig now wants to negotiate with the federal government about a continuation of “Alles gurgelt”.
Lifebrain would have to cut 1,600 employees
Meanwhile, the large laboratory Lifebrain fears for its future. The abolition of the free tests would be accompanied by drastic job cuts in the company, which has grown strongly in its first year in Vienna. If the free tests were to end completely, “we would have to cut 1,200 of the 1,600 employees,” said company founder Michael Havel. “That would be really terrible – everyone is well trained and motivated,” says the managing director.
“The question is how many tests are left – of course we have to scale our employees according to actual needs,” explained the Lifebrain boss. His company is currently the “Alles gurgelt” partner of the City of Vienna. “We would have to resize the entire structure,” says Havel. The current size could then not be maintained. The company would also have to withdraw from the current five pavilions on the Baumgartnerhöhe to one or two. The activities there started in December 2020 – with 120 employees, around two thirds of them in the laboratory and around one third in logistics, i.e. in delivering, unpacking and repacking the delivered samples.
Up to 20 euros for PCR test
The price for the PCR tests would also go up significantly if the number of samples were to be massively reduced. “It will certainly not stay at 6 euros if the quantities are no longer that.” In extreme cases, “15 to 20 euros” would then have to be demanded, Havel estimated. The pharmacies get 25 euros per test.
Lifebrain can currently analyze up to 800,000 corona tests within 24 hours on the Penzing Clinic in Vienna. The expansion was rapid. At the beginning a little over a year ago, 30,000 PCR tests could be evaluated there per day, but in the beginning a maximum of 20,000 were actually analyzed. In 2021 as a whole, Lifebrain generated sales of around EUR 300 million at the Vienna location with the evaluation of around 23 million PCR gargle tests.
A short-lived pandemic business, as the current development makes clear. The large laboratory’s contracts with the City of Vienna can be terminated at short notice. “They can cancel within six weeks,” said Havel. The employees are employed by a temporary work agency, salexius Personalleasing GmbH.
Lifebrain boss: “This will start again in the fall
The Lifebrain boss hopes that the governing politicians will have enough foresight, even if the measures can now be relaxed in the spring. “The real question is what happens with the pandemic – if so many people were now infected, the virus has an incredible number of ways to form variants,” said the doctor. There could be calm in the summer, but “this will start again in the fall”.
Another question is “whether politicians want an infrastructure if it pops up again in the fall, with a potentially dangerous variant.” “Personally, I believe that the virus is constantly looking for loopholes in order to become malicious.” After the pandemic, Lifebrain wants to remain in Vienna in a much smaller form, with a “competence center for genetics” for the entire French parent company Cerba HealthCare. “We will try to offer environmental tests.”
It is unclear how long the school will test for
Above all, the government questioned the widespread free testing: “Many experts also advise a paradigm shift when it comes to testing,” said Mückstein. “Regularly testing symptom-free, boosted people makes little sense and costs a lot of money.” Based on expert assessments in this area, he announced that they would “sharpen” without naming a date. In any case, testing will remain in place until March 31st and will also be free of charge.
On the question of how to proceed with the school tests beyond March 31, Mückstein kept a low profile and referred to Minister of Education Martin Polaschek (ÖVP). In his office, however, the APA request was also vague and only referred to the current test strategy. The situation is regularly reassessed in consultation with experts, it said.