With Slovakia slowly wrapping up its mass COVID-19 testing scheme, other countries across the EU have slowly begun considering implementing a similar initiative. One of the first heads of state to publicly announce that his government is considering such a move was Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria, who earlier last week proclaimed that mass testing is perhaps the only way for the country to avoid a long lockdown in December.
Building on the experiences of others
The Austrian government, seeing the successful yet albeit controversial approach taken by neighbouring Slovakia has begun preparations for its own mass testing campaign to take place over the next few weeks.
According to Chancellor Kurz, mass testing of the country’s population would allow it to avoid a lengthy lockdown and would give the economy the chance to bounce back as quickly as possible. Right now, Austria is in the middle of a nation-wide lockdown which is set to expire on 6 December. The mass testing campaign is meant to be held at its end and should prevent the need for it to be extended into the future, thus sparing both citizens and their businesses additional damages.
Currently, there is little certainty about how exactly the Austrian government will be approaching the mass testing campaign. What has been made evident, however, is that it will be following in the footsteps of neighbouring Slovakia.
Currently, the Austrian health ministry is debating whether the entire population of the country should be tested or just specific groups. Furthermore, it is all but certain that testing will be done through the use of antigen tests – as was the case in Slovakia.
Where the two countries’ approaches differ, however, is in the compulsory nature of the mass testing. While Slovakia made it effectively mandatory for every citizen to take part in the campaign, Austrian officials are signalling that they could be far laxer in their requirements.
Source: TheMayor.EU
