Vienna's hospitals straining as country weighs opening terraces: minister

Vienna’s hospitals are close to the level of strain from COVID-19 reached last autumn that forced a lockdown to be imposed, Austria’s health minister said on Friday, days before a decision on whether to let restaurants open outdoors.Infections have been steadily increasing since Austria loosened its third lockdown on Feb. 8 by letting non-essential shops reopen despite stubbornly high COVID-19 cases at the time. A nighttime curfew replaced all-day restrictions on movement. Austria has recorded 504,581 cases of the disease so far, including 8,982 deaths. The number of new infections reported rose above 3,500 on Friday, the highest level since early December, when cases were falling during the second national lockdown. The government plans to let restaurant, cafe and bar terraces reopen on March 27, a decision it will review on Monday.