Covidistan Annals: Court of Audit Chastises Gov’t: Testing 2020-22 Cost 5.9b Euro: ‘no strategy, no use’
Also, the CoA determined that this was known at the time--time to roll out Covid Tribunals to try the 'pandemic management' in a public court, preferably for treason, but idiocy shall be named, too
Editorial preliminaries: this post is too long for email. Please read it online or in the app.
The first section functions as a kind of summary of earlier developments in Austria (Covidistan); skip to the first bigger header, if desired.
It’s been a while since we last checked in with ‘the experts’ in the medical profession, politics, and legacy media in Austria-turned-Covidistan. Long-term readers may remember that these pages began, to a large extent, as a chronicle of what the so-called ‘pandemic’ was doing to the body politic formerly known as ‘Austria’.
In recent months, as the (so far) six-part series ‘The End of Covidistan’ documents, ruling coalitions of Austria’s ‘Uniparty’ (ÖVP-SPÖ-Greens-NEOS) have lost quite a few state elections, with the Freedom Party (FPÖ) profiting massively. The FPÖ is also consistently leading national polls with a comfortable lead over esp. the two middling parties ÖVP and SPÖ.
For the sixth part, which describes the third iteration of the correlation between the share of ‘unvaccinated’ and FPÖ gains, see:
Yet, the tide was turning against the Covid Hawks for some time, despite Austria’s harsh Zero Covid régime outside China: ‘vaccination’ was tried to make mandatory, Vienna’s pink-ish state gov’t kept mask mandates in public transport in place until May 2023. For details, readers are invited to see:
And this detailed look at the proposed federal ‘vaccine mandate’:
With these things in mind, let us move on to more recent events.
Court of Audit Chastises Gov’t: Tests 2020-22 Cost 5.9b Euro: ‘no strategy, no use’
Back in mid-May, the preliminary results of the Court of Audit (Rechnungshof) looking into the government’s Covid test strategy, made it to the press. This being Austria’s equivalent of the Gov’t Accountability Office (GAO), sentiments and moralising panic ran high among known Covid Hawks, for which we turn, reliably, to Der Standard.
A few days ago, the Court of Audit has now presented—in the middle of peak summer—the final report on the Covid régime’s testing frenzy. The (German) original text of the report entitled, ‘Federal-Wide Covid-19 Tests’ (Bundesweite Covid-19-Tests), can be accessed here.
Its main findings are easily summarised (my translation and emphases):
The objective of this financial audit was to systematically assess the COVID-19 tests as a pandemic management measure, the strategy pursued with them, the organisation of the population-wide PCR tests carried out by the states, their accounting with the Ministry of Health as well as the number of tests and their costs. the number of tests and their costs. The focus rested on on the assessment of the scope, organisation, implementation, costs and billing of the and billing of the population-based tests in 2020 and 2021. The period reviewed included the years 2020 and 2021 as well as—insofar as data were available—more recent developments. [p. 11]
So far, so good. Let’s dive into their findings, shall we?
Whose Responsibility?
The Minister of Health is the supreme authority responsible for pandemic management and is responsible for directing, steering and coordinating the necessary measures nationwide. The legal instruments available for this are decrees, ordinances and, if necessary, directives. [i.e., secondary legislation, comparable to ‘executive orders’ in US parlance, or ‘decrees’, if Russia is involved]
Nevertheless, these legal instruments often remained unused in practice. For example, due to the limited availability of PCR tests at the beginning of the pandemic, the Ministry of Health quickly developed a risk-oriented prioritisation, but left its the determination to render [this prioritisation] mandatory to state governors. According to the testing strategy published in August 2020, asymptomatic persons could be tested voluntarily as part of screening programmes to monitor the activity of the virus and to detect an increase in the number of cases. But even this testing strategy, as a non-binding document, could not have a steering effect comparable to that of the binding legal instruments of the Minister of Health, because the implementing authorities in the states were not bound by it. This also applied to the subsequent versions of the test strategy. [pp. 11-12]
Oh, federalism, I love thee. In this case, there is not a hint of irony in my comment—this is about as valid proof of the fact that, during the so-called ‘pandemic’, Western countries were governed, such as they were, by panicking morons who failed to grasp what they were doing and showed themselves ignorant, in the worst possible ways, of how Western societies (supposedly) worked.
On a more cheerful note, we may surmise that the checks and balances that have evolved over time to prevent gov’t overreach and tyranny actually worked, to a certain extent. This is apparent esp. in federally constituted polities, with the direct comparison of Florida vs. NY State or California serving as proof.
The main take-away from the above report, though, is that ‘testing’ was a deeply flawed ‘strategy’ (sic) that, from the get-go, never worked. Part of this was due to administrative-constitutional limitations (devolution of power), part of this was due to the problematic nature of the test kits used; yet, let’s see what the Court of Audit has to say about the tests’ purely medicinal value (sic) in making a significant difference.
Mass Testing and its Discontents
With the widespread availability of antigen tests in autumn 2020, the framework for testing changed. In mid-November 2020, then-chancellor [Sebastian Kurz] announced publicly a mass test for the entire population, without consulting the without consulting the Minister of Health, who is responsible for pandemic management and thus for strategic decisions. The health minister’s advisors did not favour mass testing, as the testing strategy followed a risk-oriented approach. The Austria-wide participation rate in the mass test was 23% (2,045,155 tests performed), of which 0.21% (4,254 persons) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. [line break added]
A retrospective evaluation therefore concluded that mass testing of asymptomatic persons was not effective, and an internal paper of the internal paper from the Ministry of Health also pointed out that the medical medical benefit of mass testing was unclear. According to an estimate by the [Court of Audit], the mass test costs between 40-50m euros. The medical crisis team of the City of Vienna also decided as early as October 2020 to create the broadest possible and lowest-threshold antigen testing offer for asymptomatic persons. [p. 12]
You’ve got to give it to gov’t and legacy media: the former knew of these shenanigans and the latter simply parroted the régime’s lines. Note, in passing, that out of approx. 9m inhabitants, little more than 2m—i.e., less than a quarter—participated in this charade. Of these 2m people, .21% ‘tested positive’: 4,254 individuals.
It is further revealed that the gov’t knew about this—and pushed ahead with what turned out to be an insanely high amount of testing: in all, more than 300m tests (both PCR and lateral flow tests) were used. The price tag is staggering—5.2b euros. Wait a moment, we’ll get to that one in a moment, but what I want to point out right now is also that the initial mass testing campaign with the afore-mentioned 2m participants ‘costs between 40-50m euros’. In other words: pocket change, and the fact that the price tag may be 25% higher or not appears not to bother anyone. Where did that money go, by the way?
In addition to the tests offered by the states and independently of them, there were test sites in public pharmacies and at doctors’ offices. Furthermore, the Ministry of Tourism had tests carried out for tourism employees, the Ministry of Education at schools and the Ministry of Economy at companies. Public institutions also made use of the wide range of tests on offer in order to take all precautions to protect people. [line break added]
The different test offers were not coordinated. In addition, according to the Ministry of Health, the exact number of tests carried out in the period under review could not be reliably determined or presented on the basis of the data available to it—also because the number of tests carried out was reported inconsistently by the Länder due to a lack of requirements. This lack of quality-assured data made it difficult to control the testing process and to assess its influence on the epidemiological situation; it also favoured possible parallel structures and multiple testing. [p. 13]
Translated into reality, this wording indicates that ‘testing’ devolved into a free-for-all, with literally everyone who could (get money for doing so) participated in this charade. No coordination was forthcoming from the Health Ministry, whose cabinet-level appointees—Rudi Anschober, Wolfgang Mückstein, and Johannes Rauch (albeit the latter to lesser degrees)—abdicated their responsibilities, if they ever actually carried them out.
What this means is a kind of putsch carried out by an ambitious executive—chancellors Sebastian Kurz, Alexander Schallenberg, and Karl Nehammer—who, in cahoots with willing executioners in heavily subsidised legacy media, gaslit the people massively. The one question that remains is—did these apparently diminutive ‘leaders’ believe this nonsense themselves? If they fell for their own BS, they should still be facing legal problems for the biggest policy blunder since 1945 (although I move that EU accession in 1995 might be even bigger, as ‘Brussels’ has seriously compromised member-states’ abilities to act independently). If they did so knowingly, I suppose indictments for high crimes and treason are in order.
What’s in a Policy Change?
In 2021, the Ministry of Health changed its strategic thinking on testing several times within a few months. First, it relied on a broad availability of tests and pushed PCR gargle tests, then followed considerations towards targeted testing and finally towards a cost obligation for the tests. However, the official testing strategy of March 2021 was not adapted accordingly. The Ministry of Health did not publish a new testing strategy until about a year later in April 2022.
States were not able to plan ahead, also because the Ministry of Health did not make any long-term commitments for projects to expand PCR testing at the state level. Then, by November 2021, tests had to be available in large quantities in a short period of time when proof of testing, vaccination or recovery became mandatory for professional practice (3G in the workplace).
The response rate of tests issued increased to 31% (Lower Austria) and 41% (Vienna) five months after the start of the programme. One month after the start of the programme, the response rate had reached only 4% (Lower Austria) and 23% (Vienna). [pp. 13-14]
And, like dominoes, we see everything falling into place: no tactic, no less any kind of strategy on part of the federal gov’t—with the exception of the ill-advised move to gratuitous exclusion and the kindling of hatred against ‘the unvaccinated’. By late autumn 2021, mandatory ‘vaccination’ was envisioned by leading gov’t and ÖVP party officials. If you wish to revisit these strange days, please read this piece on the introduction of ID and Covid Passport checks (which somehow never gets old, although it still rankles me):
Key Take-Aways From the CoA’s Analysis
According to the Court of Audit’s estimation, the large number of offers resulted in at least 306.4m tests carried out until the end of March 2022. This number does not include the following data—because they were not compiled centrally—of
at-home antigen [lateral flow] tests (according to the available statistics, in 2021 approx. 123m test kits were distributed)
tests carried out by private providers
tests carried out in businesses with fewer than 50 employees. [p. 15]
Basically, an unknown number of tests that may very well equal, if not exceed, the number of tests ‘officially’ counted is missing from the gov’t database. All the data so nicely compiled by ‘pandemic management’ agencies, displayed in vivid colours by, say, the European CDC or OWID, and breathlessly reported (sic) by people ‘doing’ journalism (lol) are—fake, if not outright fraudulent.
Due to lack of available data, there was no overall overview of the actual number and the costs of the tests incurred throughout Austria to date. For 2020 and 2021, the Court of Audit was able to trace payments to the tune of 2.878b (as of the end of June 2022). Of this amount, approximately EUR 2.2 billion was accounted for by the tests billed by the Ministry of Health in the states, in pharmacies, in the private practice sector, and for the living room tests. Approximately 266m euros were spent on tests in schools arranged by the Ministry of Education; approx. 176m for the procurement of antigen tests and assistance services by the Ministry of Defence; approx. 169m euros for the Safe Hospitality test offer of the Ministry of Tourism; and approximately 69m euros for the tests conducted at the workplace sponsored by the Ministry of Economy. Taking into account further test costs in the area of the Ministry of Health, which are likely to be allocated [in fiscal year] 2021, amounting to around 88m euros, the total provisional test costs for the years 2020 and 2021 are around 3b euros. [ibid.]
So, as far as the Court of Audit knows, 5.9b euros were allocated and billed, but somehow in the thicket of federalism, no-one actually traced the money. How wonderful, esp. if you were among those who were affected by the monstrosity of ‘contact tracing’ (remember that one?) or barred from going about your life based on insane 3G rules that were based on—as the Court of Audit explains—fraudulent data and no strategy, all of which was known to the authorities.
The federal government bore the majority of the test costs without limitations. Considerations to limit the costs only led to the Minister of Health limiting the number of tests per person and month in April 2022. The Ministry of Health did not analyse which types of tests cost how much on average (such as PCR tests for self-testing, tests in test centres, or in pharmacies). Therefore, neither an analysis of the cost-benefit ratio of different types of tests was possible nor an informed decision on limiting tests or prioritising individual test offers.
The Ministry of Health only partially had the data relevant for analyses because it did not request information from the States on the number and type of tests carried out and therefore did not have an overview of the total number of tests it financed or the costs per test and test type. It was also impossible to compare the costs incurred for tests in the States in 2020 and 2021, as the States’ settlement status with the Ministry of Health was still very different as of June 2022. In addition, the regulations for the settlement of costs for population-wide tests with the States were complex and sometimes time-consuming. [p. 16]
Would that constitute ‘flying blind’? I doubt that we’ve seen anything remotely like that level of incompetence coupled with unaccountability in recent memory.
At least, as of 1 July 2023, new legislation was passed that forbids the random testing of asymptomatic individuals.
The Court of Audit’s Key Recommendations [p. 18]
The Ministry of Health should exercise its responsibility for pandemic management and ensure that other agencies do not make health policy decisions that fall within its purview and, as a consequence, take and subsequently implement measures that are not in line with its own testing strategy.
The States should be given clear (target) guidelines for future measures to deal with the pandemic, using previous experience, in order to guarantee a consistent approach throughout Austria and to ensure coordination and control by the Ministry of Health. [why would that not apply to, say, the chancellor?]
In testing, the targeted, risk-oriented approach should be pursued and expanded. In addition to this approach, population-wide tests would in future only be offered depending on the epidemiological situation and on the basis of cost-benefit aspects in comparison to the surveillance programmes. [for which data is lacking] For regional wastewater monitoring programmes in the States, the basis for comparable results would have to be specified so that they can be incorporated into the national monitoring.
In order to improve data quality, both the standardisation of State reporting and the development of the data warehouse should be continued.
For the most important test offers, the costs per test should be compared with the figures on their utilisation and their usefulness and financial viability should be assessed. For this purpose, the necessary data reporting by the States should be ensured.
In other words: no strategy was available, everyone did what they deemed helpful—to their cronies, as it happens—and no use of mass testing could be determined. Many gov’t agencies on all levels cannot to this day account for the money spent while it would appear that no political consequences are forthcoming. Oh, lest I forget to mention, all the vitriol and hate-mongering vs. ‘the unvaccinated’ by gov’t officials (e.g., here), legacy media (e.g., here), and ‘experts’ (esp. here) are, of course, gratuitous additions and ‘part of the game’.
So much for the Court of Audit’s report.
Covid in Austria: A Preliminary Tally
As it happens, we are now going to continue our own ex-post accounting of the Covid régime’s follies.
Reference is thus made to the Court of Audit’s equally partial attempt at accounting for the gov’t’s ‘pandemic management’ (sic), which, earlier this year, has yielded the following results:
Per 31 Dec. 2022, the Austro-Covidian gov’t paid out 47.7 billion euros. For a country of approx. 9m inhabitants.
As a thought experiment: if the 330m US citizens would have experienced comparable largesse, the price tag would be in the ballpark of around US$ 1.75 trillion.
Full coverage:
Excluding testing, school [closures] during the pandemic, vaccine procurement, hardship fund for agriculture and federal COVID-19 procurement, the price tag stood at 47.7b euros back in April 2023.
To this sum we shall now add a further 5.9b euros for aim- and useless testing, which brings the provisional total (for 2020-22) up to 53.6b euros. In a country of approx. 9m people.
Bottom Lines
To drive home the absurdity of these expenditures, a brief back-of-the-envelope calculation to compare with the US is apt (basis: US pop = 330m, hence we multiply 53.6b with the factor 36.7)—if Austria was as populous as the United States, and if that fictional country would have spent as much as, too, ‘pandemic management’, although utterly useless for the taxpayer, would stand at around 2 trillion dollars of euros.
In other words, as per Wikipedia, this is in the ballpark of the US-led (illegal war of aggression) against Iraq in 2003:
In 2020, Neta Crawford, chair of the political science department at Boston University, in her Costs of War Project, estimated the long term cost of the Iraq War for the United States at $1.922 trillion. This figure includes not only funding appropriated to the Pentagon explicitly for the war, but spending on Iraq by the State Department, the healthcare of Iraq War veterans, and the interest expense on debt incurred to fund 17 years of U.S. military involvement in the country. [reference]
Like with the above-cited accounting (sic) for the costs of the Iraq war (of aggression), official figures are incomplete. In other words, they will only go up over time.
As a clear sign of our times and in the spirit of fairness, back in 2003-, the US had to move a sizeable troop contingent halfway around the world and physically smash a country, kill approx. 1m people, and engage in protracted military operations that eventually turned out to be—useless.
Yet, with the so-called ‘pandemic’, we managed to essentially waste the same amount of money without doing all that to others. We’ve done it to ourselves, albeit with comparable consequences for the well-being of the body politic.
If these results don’t indicate at least parliamentary hearings, I don’t know what should. Personally, I think the scale of these absurd monstrosities requires an extraordinary ‘Covid Tribunal’ to at least try to get to the bottom of these matters.
While I don’t advocate for the death penalty, those responsible must be held accountable for the wasteful spending, incitement of hate against a sizeable part of the citizenry, and, ultimately, they shall bear the price for their own incompetence, to say nothing about at least an apology for the Covid Passport sham.
Failure to meaningfully address these festering problems guarantees that things will turn from ‘bad’ right now to (much, much) worse next time any kind of ‘crisis’ comes around.
Staggering sums of money.
"You know it's funny, when it rains it pours they got money for wars, but can't feed the poor. "