Austria warns against Tyrol travel amid variant outbreak

Austria's leader said on Tuesday that people would have to produce a negative coronavirus test to leave the country's Tyrol province as authorities try to prevent the spread of a variant first discovered in South Africa. Some 293 cases of the more contagious variant have been confirmed in Tyrol.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that over 120 of those cases are currently active, and it's the biggest known current outbreak of the variant in the European Union.

The cases are concentrated in the Schwaz district, east of Innsbruck.Officials in Tyrol initially resisted restrictions, but on Monday drew up a list of measures that included more police checks on mask-wearing and social distancing, and a requirement for negative antigen tests before people can use cable cars and ski lifts.

Also on Monday, the federal government in Vienna warned Austrians against traveling to the province - at the same time as schools, shops, hairdressing salons, museums and zoos reopened across the country after a roughly six-week lockdown.

Kurz said Tuesday that, for 10 days starting Friday, people wanting to leave Tyrol usually a popular skiing region, which borders Germany, Italy and Switzerland - will have to show a negative coronavirus test no older than 48 hours old.

Kurz said that police supported by the military will enforce the new rule on the roads.He also called for Tyrol to act to ensure the variant doesn't spread further within the province.

The measure won't apply to East Tyrol, a part of the province that is separated from Tyrol proper by a sliver of Austrian and Italian territory and is relatively unaffected, Kurz said.

He said the start date of Friday was chosen because time to prepare the measure was needed and a "mad rush and chaos" wouldn't be helpful.

The chancellor pointed to preliminary results in a small study that showed the AstraZeneca vaccine, one of three cleared for use in Europe, was only minimally effective against mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 caused by the South African variant.

"If a mutation like the South African one spreads quickly and strongly, that will cost a lot of people their lives and the road to normality will be delayed again by months," he told reporters in Vienna.