Covid summit today
The main item on the news agenda today is the talks taking place between leaders of the federal and regional governments and the Covid Crisis Commission (Gecko).
There are several items up for discussion, including Austria's testing strategy, quarantine rules, and of course further relaxations of Covid restrictions. We will publish more updates on The Local's homepage when we hear them confirmed, but the Austrian media are already reporting that there could be big changes coming.
The Heute magazine has reported that from March 5th, the 2G and 3G rules will be scrapped entirely, the restaurant curfew removed, nightclubs opened, and quarantine scrapped for asymptomatic people. The government has not confirmed or denied these points, but has denied one claim made by Heute -- that the vaccine mandate will be scrapped -- saying that a decision on this will not be made today.
It's also worth remembering that any decisions made at the national level are the minimum level of restrictions, and regions can choose to implement their own stricter rules, something which Vienna in particular has opted to do in the past.
Vienna relaxes Covid quarantine rules for schools
Children who have 2G proof (full vaccination or recent recovery from Covid) will be able to continue attending school in person even if there are multiple confirmed cases in their class, with the change taking effect from next Monday (February 21st).
Only children who have personally tested positive, or those without 2G proof, will be considered as contacts and be asked to quarantine.
Air travel remains well below pre-Covid levels
Vienna's Schwechat airport saw 55 percent fewer passengers last month than in January 2019 before the pandemic, but with 819,674 people travelling through the airport, that was four times as many as the same month in 2020.
Vienna won't take legal action against climate activists
The campaign in question was a protest against construction of a new road in Vienna's Donaustadt neighbourhood, and the city authorities had initially threatened lawsuits against the campaigners who occupied the area.
Authorities already carried out an eviction of the camp earlier this month, but have now confirmed there will be no legal action against the protesters.
Winter Olympics update
Austria is now up to 17 medals in total after Johannes Strolz won a silver after receiving a gold earlier in the week.
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