Salzburg Festival: A Corona update

We reported earlier that a Festival staffer had tested positive with Covid-19 and five others had been confined in 14-day quarantine.

The Festival has sent us this update:

The temporary employee of the Salzburg Festival who took up her position on 18 June 2020, after a negative initial test, was unfortunately tested positive for coronavirus yesterday. So far, she has only exhibited light symptoms, such as a scratchy throat. Since she had been keeping a health and contact diary, as required by the Salzburg Festival’s prevention plan, the health authorities could immediately be informed of all Category I contact persons.

By way of explanation, a Category I contact person is any person who has spent more than 15 minutes at a distance of less than 2 metres in the same room with an infected person. 

Those Festival employees who are Category I contact persons are now into quarantine for 14 days. Preferring to err on the side of caution, however, the Festival is also testing persons beyond Category I (i.e. those who were in contact with the employee in question for a shorter period of time, or at a greater distance). In the meantime, all tests of the five Category I contact persons of the employee have come back negative, but they will remain in quarantine for the full 14 days.

Regrettably, the prevention concept thereby had to prove its practicability for the first time, which it fortunately did. The prescribed procedures and measures, for example the health and contact diary, ensured that the first rule of rapid containment, i.e. immediate traceability, was adhered to.

Preparations for the Festival are not endangered by this regrettable case.