Austria Set To Open Schools In May Amidst COVID-19 Crisis.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in a statement to the press on April 24, 2020 in Vienna, stated that the country would start to re-open classes at schools from May 4 as it has commenced the gradual loosening of its coronavirus lockdown measures.

The country’s Education Minister Heinz Fassmann told a press conference that over 100,000 final-year students will go back to school on May 4. While schools for six- to 14-year-olds will re-open May 15, while classes for other students aged 15 and over will follow from May 29, provided infections don’t surge again.

He added that students will also have to wear masks inside schools except for when they are seated at their desks inside classrooms.

Austria this month began easing the lockdown measures imposed in March and which have so far succeeded in slowing the spread of the new coronavirus. The country of almost nine million people has been spared the brunt of the crisis so far with some 15,000 reported infections and 530 deaths.