Breaking: Austria lengthens lockdown
mainChancellor Sebastian Kurz said the Covid lockdown, which should have ended this weekend, will be extended for at least another month.
That means all theatres and hotels to remain closed until January. No public festivities for Christmas and New Year.
Rehearsals may continue but audiences are strictly locked out.
Ski slopes will open but tourists will not be admitted. Night-time curfew will clock in at 8pm.
‘We will have to live with further massive restrictions,’ the chancellor said.
Rehearsals for Platėe began some three weeks ago, but with no performances will the singers be payed?
Hard to say. Employees of the Federal Theaters (Staats-Volk-Burg) are on “Kurzarbeit”, receive most of their salary. TadW is different: I know someone who decided not to work there when she couldnt get a straight answer about compensation (lodging, etc) in case a lockdown occurred.
I’m currently in the Schönberg Chor in TadW, and we have been paid for all lockdown rehearsals and performances, with or without audience. At least, thus far. I count myself lucky. With this news now however, Platee will likely be reduced to a single concert for recording, without audience of course.
We are still rehearsing. The production will be filmed for TV and DVD, and yes, everyone will be paid, though less than what we would have gotten if we had the performances.
Australia knows what it is doing. Together with New Zealand they are among the countries that have best managed the response to the pandemic.
So congratulations Aus… what? Austria?…… never mind.
You forget that Australia and New Zealand are an island. They have the geographical advantage whereas Austria is a landlocked country bordered by several countries. They have less control over who comes in and comes out whereas Australia and New Zealand can literally isolate by flight restrictions.
Now is not the time to be comparing one country is better than the other. We are all trying our best to get out of this.
“Australia and New Zealand are an island. ”
Maybe even more than one. Someone should investigate this.
I agree
Australia and New Zealand are islands but trust me, it wasn’t bloody easy! Fair dinkum we had good ol’ Aussies coming back from their vacay from god knows where, USA and Paris and that, infecting our diggers so we had to pull up stumps and go publess and jobless and fancy cuisineless in order to bring down the by crikey virus. And we did that for months! But now we are all good mate, and yep, being an island has helped, but it was still very, very hard.
This time it’s going to work, I can sense it
Lockdowns will be tried as many times as are necessary to find the one that is really effective.
Sebastian Lang
No VPO New Year’s day TV concert?