The Pandemic in Austria

26 Mar

I’ve been recording the numbers more or less daily for three(!) years and have decided to stop. For that, I did want to do a quick review.

On 26 March 2020, 35,995 tests had been done. (A lot, I think, given that the pandemic made it into our consciousness only about two weeks before that.) As of yesterday, 207,503,628 had been carried out, an unimaginably big number. At the height of the testing campaign, there were a few days when over 500,000 tests were done per day. The daily rate is currently around 25,000. (Out of gratitude for them, I try not to think too clearly about what the testing and vaccination campaigns have done to the environment.)

The early statistics included only four numbers: tests, confirmed cases, deaths, and recoveries. We now get eight numbers: the seven-day average (as of yesterday: 246.9 compared to over 1,100 at its peak), tests (see above), positive tests (a cumulative number: 6,021,769), active cases (currently 37,912), people hospitalized (1,044), people in intensive care (in addition to those hospitalized: 55), fatalities (22,082), and recoveries (5,961,775).

For a while, I was also keeping track every few days of the vaccination rates, but these have hardly changed in the last few months so it hasn’t been very interesting. (In fact, it started to get a bit discouraging.) My last recorded figures tell me that 71.8% of the population have gotten two doses; 56.2% have gotten three; and only 18.7% percent have been “aufgefrischt”, which is defined as having gotten 4 or more.

Not only have the numbers changed. The terminology has, too. “Bestätigte Fälle” (confirmed cases) became at some point “In Labor bestätigte Fälle” presumably to distinguish those results from the ones we get from self tests, of which we still get five per month for free on our health insurance. “Todesfälle” has become “Verstorbene,” which sounds a bit more tender. And “Auskuriert” has become “Genesene” (recovered). I’d love to know the reasons for the changes, but I don’t.

Coronavirus is still with us, but we are getting back to life without masks and such frequent testing. Spring seems the perfect season to live a bit more again, a bit like coming out of hibernation.

Should you be interested in where I got the numbers: https://orf.at/corona/daten/oesterreich

Wishing all a beautiful Sunday and great health!

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International Women’s Day

8 Mar

One of the biggest demonstrations I’ve ever seen in Vienna. And one of the loudest. I was teaching and had to interrupt the class!

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The Volksgarten has just turned 200

2 Mar

I saw a story on the ORF website this morning that the Volksgarten in Vienna, famous, among other things, for its stunning rose garden, came into being 200 years ago yesterday. It was the first garden in Austria to be designed and created by an emperor specifically for the people. (The emperor at the time was Franz I, great-nephew of Empress Maria Theresia.)

For several years, I apartment sat for friends of my family’s. It was a 200m2 flat in a distinguished old building (took two days to clean those traditional double windows!) right behind the Parliament in Vienna. The Volksgarten was less than a five-minute walk away and I sat there often.

Two other vivid memories: riding past on the tram and seeing the Lippizaners grazing in the Volksgarten (the Hofburg caught fire in 1992 and the horses were led to safety in the park) and sitting on a bench in the rose garden not quite a year ago having gone to Josef-Meinrad-Platz to test my way out of quarantine. I got there only to find that the computers were down and no testing was taking place. It was the first time I had been out of the apartment in over a week, and it was wonderful.

More (in German): https://wien.orf.at/stories/3196759/

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The Pandemic (remember the pandemic? ;-))

25 Feb

The front page of the Kurier reminding us that it was three years ago today that the first coronavirus cases were detected in Austria. Things moved very fast after that. As of March 1st this year, most of the restrictions will fall. Public transportation in Vienna has been something of a holdout, still requiring FFP2 masks. Even that will no longer be the case, although a third of Kurier readers polled have said they will voluntarily continue to wear them.

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Snow

22 Jan

We woke up to snow yesterday and it has been snowing off and on since then. Beautiful. 😊

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Stories from the Trafik

14 Jan

This morning, as on every Saturday I’m not teaching, Maylo and I went to the Trafik on our way home from our morning walk. He got his treats and I got mine (newspaper and instant lottery ticket). Then because it wasn’t busy we got into a chat, quite a heavy chat as it turned out.

The Trafikant, nearing 80, was born in Vienna during the Second World War and told how his mother would wrap him in a blanket and carry him down to the air raid shelter in the cellar.

One of his employees then started talking about her experiences during the war in Bosnia before her family fled to Vienna, how she, too, spent time in bomb cellars. From her accent, I could tell that she wasn’t Austrian born, but we had never talked before about where she came from. (I personally am so allergic to the question “Where are you from?” when I have lived here over half my life that I very rarely ask it of others.)

We had gotten onto the topic of how each time we thought it was the last war in Europe and how the whole misery is being repeated now in Ukraine when another customer came in and Maylo and I left.

I think Trafiks are often microcosms of the world around us.

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Makery Vienna – Vienna Makery

7 Jan

https://makeryworld.at/

I have just discovered that there is a DIY restaurant in Vienna. That’s right — you pay for the privilege of cooking your own meal. I just wonder who gets to do the dishes …

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Pelé

30 Dec

One more great lost this year. Of course, his soccer playing was incomparable, but I will miss most his smile, his humanity, and his humanitarian efforts. I’ll never forget that the day David Beckham arrived in Los Angeles with great fanfare, Pele was playing in a match to benefit UNICEF. The article in the NYT reminded me of the beauty of Rob Hughes’s (essentially philosophical) writing about soccer and introduced me to that side of Pelé’s greatness.

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Haiku 2022

26 Dec

With warmest holiday wishes also for a healthy, happy New Year full of peace!

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How refreshing

10 Dec

I have just bought replacements for my hiking boots, which served long and well until the bottoms dropped off. (We could get up to 5 cms of snow tomorrow so this seemed like a good moment.)

What was refreshing about this experience? When I asked if they had already been waterproofed, I was told yes, they were ready to go so I didn’t need to buy the waterproofing spray I had in my hand. Even in Vienna, many businesses have succumbed to what I call the McDonald’s mentality. You know, if you only order a hamburger, they ask if you want fries with it; and if you order the hamburger with fries, they ask if you want an apple pie with it. In German, you could call it the “Dazu-Mentalität” because the phrase is “Pommes dazu?” or “Apfeltascherl dazu?”

I was really grateful that Jack Wolfskin, the shop where I bought my boots, has not succumbed.

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