Austria will transition into a full lockdown next week after a partial curfew introduced earlier this month failed to slow the rise of new Covid-19 infections in the country.
Effective 17 November, Austria will be under a round-the-clock curfew, similar to the one it imposed in early March in response to the first wave on infections in the country.
"A partial lockdown has been in force in Austria for 12 days," Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz said in a post on Twitter late yesterday. "Since the numbers are still not falling as they should, this makes a further tightening."
Under this new lockdown, all businesses will be closed with the exception of those offering essential services like grocery stores, banks, post officers and pharmacies. The general public will only be allowed to leave home to buy groceries or for healthcare reasons, and have been told by the government to work from home whenever possible.
This tighter lockdown will run until 7 December, by which point Austria hopes to be able to gradually re-open, beginning with schools and retail institutions.
"These measures are extremely drastic. But we want to make sure that the lockdown is strong enough so that the number of infections also drops quickly," Kurz said. "This is the only way we can prevent our health system from being overwhelmed."
This further tightening of measures comes after the number of new infections continued rising despite the night-time curfew that was implemented on 3 November.
Daily Covid-19 cases rose to a new record-high of 10,368 on 13 November, up from the previous high of 9,643 one day prior. New cases have averaged close to 7,000 since the night-time curfew was introduced on 3 November, up from around 1,000 in the first week of October and 300 in early September.
Austria was one of the first countries in Europe to impose a full lockdown back in mid-March in response to the first wave of infections. It subsequently became of the first countries to then ease restrictions in mid-April. Its highest one-day increase in Covid-19 cases during that first wave was 1,141 in late-March.
During the first lockdown Austria's gasoline demand fell by 29pc in March to 25,000 b/d, compared with 35,000 b/d in February, and by a further 36pc month-on-month in April to 16,000 b/d, according to data from Joint Organisations Data Initiative (Jodi).
Gasoil demand also suffered a hit, falling by 6pc in March to 162,000 b/d, from 172,000 b/d in February, and by a further 13pc in April, to 141,000 b/d. Both gasoline and diesel demand started recovering from May onwards, but the newest round of restrictions will most definitely dampen transport fuel demand once again.
