The Austrian government is set to shortly announce the lifting of quarantine requirements for people infected with the coronavirus, the country's APA news agency reported.
A decree authorizing the changes will reportedly be presented to the public later on Tuesday.
According to the new rules, anyone who does not feel ill can leave the house even after a positive test, but is still subject to some restrictions.
These include a requirement to wear an FFP2 mask, unless the infected person is outdoors and at a distance of 2 metres from other people. In addition, they will be banned from visiting hospitals, nursing homes, facilities for the disabled and health resorts.
Austria's health minister, Johannes Rauch, and the minister of labour, Martin Kocher, plan to officially present their "variant management plan" at a press conference, APA reported.
Rauch told the Tiroler Tageszeitung newspaper on Tuesday that people should "simply take note that we cannot live with this level of pandemic-related crisis for years." He said the coronavirus measures would be tightened if the situation became serious once again.
In the autumn, Rauch said, the gas crisis, inflation, and the war in Ukraine all threaten a difficult situation for the population anyway. "I am the minister of social affairs and health, so by now the social question and the question of social dislocation concerns me at least as intensely as the coronavirus crisis," Rauch told the newspaper.
The seven-day incidence in Austria - which stands at around 900 cases per 100,000 inhabitants per week - is higher than neighbouring Germany's figure. Considerably more patients currently have to be cared for in hospitals compared with the summer of last year.
