Austria to Help Portuguese Patients in Intensive Care for COVID-19

Austria to Help Portuguese Patients in Intensive Care for COVID-19.

THE Chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz, announced today (January 31) that the country will host Portuguese patients who are in intensive care for COVID as a sign of “European solidarity.”

“The coronavirus pandemic poses enormous challenges for all European countries. It is a requirement of European solidarity to help quickly and without bureaucracy to save lives,” he wrote on his Twitter account.

The move comes after Kurz offered Austria’s help in a phone conversation with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa.

Kurz did not indicate how many patients the ICU’s in Austria will be able to host but did state that the country has already provided help for Italy, France and Montenegro, hosting ICU patients from those countries during peaks of the pandemic.

The third wave has put Portugal at the limit of its hospital capacities and yesterday (January 30) 293 deaths were registered. Since the start of the pandemic, more than 12,000 deaths have been recorded, 5,000 of them in January alone.

Austria, for its part, is in its third partial lockdown since December 26, with non-essential shops closed and movement restrictions.

The measure has reduced infections to about 1,500 a day and the country of 8.9 million inhabitants has a cumulative incidence of 107 positives per 100,000 inhabitants for seven days, which has freed up many beds in hospitals.

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