Covidistan Update: Mandate Reparations On Track as Court of Audits Slams Gov't For its 'Testing' Madness

The former will costs the Lower Austrian state some 200K while the federal gov't wasted 5.2b euros

Every now and then, even legacy media outlets as hawkish as Austro-Covidistan’s Der Standard report on something interesting. Long-time readers of these pages know that Der Standard—founded in the late 1980s in the mould of the NYT (sic)—had often been at the forefront of Covid (Chicken-) Hawkery in Austria, to say nothing about its thoroughly woke-fied crypto-Bolshevik leanings.

Earlier this week, two pieces of information came out that were widely published in Austria, and I elected to use Der Standard’s coverage to drive home a few points about the ‘Corona Reckoning’ (Aufarbeitung), or what passes for it, in Austria.

Reference is made to a specific piece, entitled ‘Revenge of the Voters, Pt. 4’, which explains crucial background issues pertaining to today’s posting:

Covid Reparations in Lower Austria

On Tuesday, 16 May, the ÖVP-FPÖ state gov’t of Lower Austria finally offered specifics on the promised Covid Reparations fund. Endowed with 30m euros, the Freedom Party had made the restitution of fees and penalties later invalidated by the Constitutional Court a pre-requisite of their joining the gov’t.

Remember, the FPÖ clearly won the state elections, gaining almost 10% and joined the state gov’t demanding a veritable laundry list of their prospective coalition partner. This has, as explained in the top-liked piece, triggered the Branch Covidians.

What happened now is that the final details of these reparations have been ironed out.

Here’s how Max Stepan, writing for Der Standard on 16 May 2023, spins this (here and in the following my translations and emphases):

It is considered one of the most controversial projects of the black [ÖVP]-blue [FPÖ] state government in Lower Austria: the Corona Fund, which among other things also provides for the repayment of certain Covid fines. Despite much criticism, including from constitutional lawyers, Provincial Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) presented the first key points of the fund together with her deputy Udo Landbauer (FPÖ) on Tuesday.

This is to be approved in the Landtag session on 25 May. It is endowed with 31.3m euros. The repayment of fines that were later invalidated by the Constitutional Court (VfGH) is to make up only .7% of the entire fund. This corresponds to about 200,000 euros.

‘99 percent of the funds are to go to those people who suffered damage in the pandemic’, [state governor] Mikl-Leitner explained. Accordingly, these funds would be paid out to families and children who had suffered from the school closures and to people suffering from Long-Covid.

The vast majority of payouts are earmarked for extra tutoring, medical care for those who suffer from post-injection adverse events.

Mikl-Leitner stressed that the pandemic had ‘brought death and suffering’, and that the fund was now trying to make up for that. The vast majority had complied with all measures, they should not be the ones to suffer, ‘that was always clear to me’, said the head of the provincial government. However, one must also stand by mistakes and rectify them.

So while Mikl-Leitner's words at the press conference specifically addressed those people who had been harmed, for example, by the Corona illnesses, the two FPÖ officials at the podium struck a different tone. It was a ‘historic day’ and ‘the wind of justice is blowing through the country’, said [FPÖ state party chair Udo] Landbauer.

FPÖ state councillor Luisser put it this way, that the ‘peaceful protest against the Corona measures’ had now been successful—he himself emphasised that he had marched in some demonstrations against the measures. In a first statement, FPÖ federal party leader Herbert Kickl speaks of a ‘thrust reversal of justice’ and demands such measures also at the federal level.

SPÖ and Neos support individual points

The SPÖ supports individual points, such as medical care or measures that benefit children and young people. But it is not acceptable that the many thousands of volunteers who were involved in the Corona pandemic are forgotten, said the designated red state party chair and state councillor Sven Hergovich.

NEOS state spokesperson Indra Collini described the fund as a first step ‘in the direction of reparations’, although she had wished for ‘a stronger focus on children and young people as well as on schools’.

The Greens are completely opposed: ‘Those who have abided by the rules now appear as the disadvantaged and the stupid ones’, stresses health spokesperson Silvia Moser. According to Moser, the money would be better spent on care and child and youth welfare.

We may learn two things here: even though 99.3% of the 31.3m euros are earmarked for stuff SPÖ, NEOS, and Greens are in support of, it’s not enough.

Secondly, why is the repayment of illegal fines something that triggers the Covid Hawks? Remember, that’s approx. 700 individuals who get back some 200,000 euros.

Could it have to do with the following issue?

Court of Audit Slams Gov’t for Wasting 5.2b euros on Useless Tests

On the same day, the Court of Audit (Rechnungshof) presented a draft report on the Covidian régime’s mass testing mania.

Remember, the Court of Audit already issued a report on the régime’s overall handling, which didn’t really work very well and cost 47.7b euros. Yep, you read that correctly: 47.7 billion euros were spent on lots of things that didn’t exactly work, ranging from abuse by both the legislature and the executive branches, an inability of delivering targeted measures, little to no oversight (here’s looking at you, legacy media and the judiciary), and significant shortfalls in carrying out these gov’t measures.

In all, the price tag is astounding: 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.

For full coverage, please see:

So, here’s how Der Standard reported on the most recent report by the Court of Audit (translation and emphases mine):

Austria's handling of Corona tests is picked apart by the Court of Audit in a recent draft report…at least 5.2b euros were spent on Covid 19 tests until the end of 2022. By the end of March 2022 alone—still excluding self-administered [antigen] tests—at least 306.4m tests were carried out. 16 times more tests were carried out via different channels than in Germany, and ‘the concrete benefit of this variety of test offers remained unclear’, according to the Court of Audit.

The auditors focused on the years 2020 and 2021 and the tests in the area of the Ministry of Health and the States of Vienna and Lower Austria. The fact that three other ministries in addition to the Ministry of Health and the states carried out tests on a larger scale created a diversity that made it difficult to control and coordinate the overall offer, according to the criticism.

Prolonged Testing Questionable

Due to a lack of data, it was neither possible to analyse the cost-benefit ratio of different test offers nor to make a well-founded decision on their limitation. The scientific assessment, especially the international comparison, had not been completed at the time of the audit…

The core recommendations of the Court of Audit: the Ministry of Health should exercise its responsibility for pandemic management. It should work to ensure that other agencies do not make the relevant decisions and then implement measures that do not conform to its own testing strategy [read: a pending power grab by the federal gov’t].

The Court of Audit fundamentally questions the mass testing that has been carried out in Austria for a long time. ‘In testing, the targeted, risk-oriented approach should be pursued and expanded’, the auditors say verbatim: ‘Population-wide testing should be offered in addition to this approach only depending on the epidemiological situation and based on cost-benefit aspects compared to surveillance programmes.’

From the Court of Audit’s point of view, it would be desirable to have a coordinated range of tests adapted to the epidemiological situation with a balanced cost-benefit ratio. In the auditors' view, this requires sound strategic foundations, data for monitoring and evaluation as well as the control of the test offers through minimum standards, specifications and coordination to avoid parallel structures and multiple testing.

In the history of Corona testing, the Court of Audit criticises, among other things, that the Ministry of Health did not specify minimum standards for implementation at the beginning of 2021, when a population-wide, low-threshold test offer had been decided. The states then proceeded differently: lateral flow tests in Vienna, in Lower Austria rather antigen tests in the beginning.

In addition, there were tests offered by pharmacies, at doctors’ offices, in tourism, at schools, but also in companies. All this had not been coordinated, the health department had not even been able to determine data on the number of tests carried out. ‘This lack of quality-assured data made it difficult to control the testing and to assess its influence on the epidemiological situation’, it says. It also favoured possible parallel structures and multiple testing.

Analyses Did Not Take Place

During 2021, the department changed its strategy considerations several times within a few months, but a new testing strategy was not published until April 2022. ‘The states were not able to plan ahead, partly because the Ministry of Health did not make long-term commitments for projects to scale up PCR testing in the countries’, the Court of Audit added. States then began to expand a population-wide PCR gargle test offer for their own use. The federal government bore the test costs almost without limit and did not analyse which type of tests cost how much on average.

Due to the spread of new virus variants, the framework conditions changed. Then, in April 2022, the Ministry of Health returned to risk-based testing. With wastewater monitoring, an alternative surveillance programme was pursued. However, there were no Austria-wide specifications here either, which made it difficult to compare the results and include them in the national monitoring.

Bottom Lines

There we go: no planning, crappy implementation, and the woke morons get ‘excited’ about 200K in ‘reparations’. But adding 5.2b to the wasted 47.7b (so far) is o.k.

I for one am looking forward (ahem) to the report on testing coming out officially.

So far, the price tag for ‘the pandemic’ in Austro-Covidistan stands at 52.9 billion euros (that is, until the end of 2021). Will we see that price tag reach triple-digits eventually? I for one wouldn’t be surprise.