Expert: Reduce the validity of antigen tests to 24 hours

It’s not about opening steps for tomorrow, but about those that should come into effect in a month’s time: Eva Schernhammer, Head of Epidemiology at MedUni Vienna, relativized the criticism of the government’s promised easing yesterday in the area of ​​the Gastronomy. These are dangerous, warned many experts, the German virologist (and SPD politician) Karl Lauterbach had even predicted that it would cost many lives, the Austrian complexity researcher Peter Klimek called it “high risk”.

Schernhammer said, however, that there was still time to see whether the objectives would hold. Until then, it is important to expand testing further and to motivate people to adhere to the safety measures.

Schernhammer was one of the participants in yesterday’s deliberations between the federal government and experts. Before that, she herself said that one should be happy if what is currently open can remain open.

Now she said in ZiB 2 that the opening steps planned from Holy Week are in truth only “baby steps” that are limited to the outdoor area.

Regarding the question of the regionalization of measures – such as B. Vorarlberg can now set further opening steps earlier – said the virologist that one has learned a lot since the first failure of the Corona traffic light.

Above all, Austria has become the test world champion, which is currently the great opportunity. Therefore, regional steps, accompanied by massive test strategies, make perfect sense.

Schernhammer clearly spoke out in favor of reducing the period of validity of antigen tests (e.g. for admissions) from 48 to at least 24 hours, twelve hours would be even better.

The expert definitely kept her distance to the demands from business and culture for openings in the indoor area as well: These would be steps “that one should really be afraid of”.