The coronavirus spreads rapidly in some winter sports areas in Austria at the end of the Christmas holidays.

This includes Kitzbühel as well as Sankt Johann im Pongau.

In Tamsweg and Landeck there has also been a particularly high increase in the number of cases in the past few days.

Michaela Seiser

Business correspondent for Austria and Hungary based in Vienna.

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Nevertheless, Tyrol's conservative governor Günther Platter spoke out against renewed strong restrictions before the meeting on Thursday with the state COVID crisis coordination (Gecko). Speculations or demands in this direction are "counterproductive", he alluded to the Kitzbühel tourism association chairman Christian Harisch in the "Tiroler Tageszeitung", who brought such a thing into play on Wednesday: Tourism should now be closed for a week at the time to use for booster vaccinations. If nothing is done, he sees the system collapse after a large number of people are in quarantine.

“The new mutation is clearly more contagious.

The experts tell us, however, that the gradients will be milder, ”said Platter.

It is important to comply with the existing rules and to monitor them better.

Lockdown speculation would only unsettle the population.

Instead, the quarantine rules need to be adjusted and the booster vaccination accelerated, said the Tyrolean.

Inns have to close

The high number of infected people is problematic for the companies in Flachau.

Several inns had to close due to a lack of employees.

"Even the ski schools run in emergency mode, there are no more group lessons," reported Mayor Thomas Oberreiter.

It is unclear how many holidaymakers or tourism employees are currently infected in the state of Salzburg. According to reports, many guests should not even be tested during their stay at the risk of quarantine. If vacationers still test positive, they are sealed off in their rooms - or they travel home by car without stopping. "But there are a number of cases where this is not so easily possible," explained health officer Christian Stöckl (ÖVP). If the test is positive, air travelers will not be taken on the plane. The room in the hotel is usually given again, and in some accommodations the construction makes it difficult to isolate people well.

Austria wants to avoid being seen as a transshipment point for the epidemic, as it was at the beginning of the pandemic.

In spring 2020 there was a major outbreak in Ischgl.

The authorities had been accused of having responded too late and insufficiently.

But an expert report saw no failure, but incorrect assessments by the authorities.

Previous claims for damages have been dismissed.

Those responsible for tourism in Austria cannot afford a debacle like the one in Ischgl and are campaigning for a vaccination.

Thousands of Dutch ski vacationers positive

Meanwhile, almost a thousand Dutch people who had previously spent their winter holidays in Austria were tested positive for the corona virus back home afterwards.

A report by the news portal "NL Times" counts 964 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the week between December 27 and January 3 and who had previously been guests in Austria.

According to the "NL Times", infections attributed to Austria account for 15.8 percent of all corona cases attributed to abroad - although the Netherlands has been declared a virus variant area by Austria, which would mean mandatory quarantine.

However, triple vaccinations with a valid PCR test are exempt from this rule.