“Much cheaper than lockdown”: Mahrer und Kopf: Operational test roads are to be integrated into the national strategy.
Corona test
After the great disappointment of the affected divisions about the extension of the lockdown until January 24, the President of the Chamber of Commerce, Harald Mahrer, advocates a massive expansion of the tests. Regular, nationwide corona tests would reduce the number of infections just as effectively as a lockdown, but would be much cheaper, Mahrer said in a statement to the APA.
With the failure of the government's “Freestest” plans, the current lockdown for trade, gastronomy and tourism was extended by a week. Every week lockdown causes “horrendous costs”, noted Mahrer and WKÖ General Secretary Karlheinz Kopf. The recent lockdown has exacerbated the already dramatic situation for many companies, “retail, hotel, catering, body-hugging service providers have their backs to the wall”. According to the trade association, the fact that the stores are not allowed to open on January 18th, but rather on January 25th, caused a drop in sales of one billion euros.
Operational test options
In order to prevent recurring lockdowns, as many citizens as possible must be tested regularly, says the WKÖ top. In this context, Mahrer and Kopf also called for operational test options to be integrated into the national test strategy. If the tests carried out in companies are equated with official results, many more companies would certainly be willing to offer them, said Mahrer and Kopf.
