Austria's daily tally of coronavirus cases jumped past 2,000 to a new high of 2,435 on Thursday, data from the interior and health ministries showed.
The daily number of cases has been rising steadily, repeatedly setting new records since exceeding the first wave's peak https://covid19-dashboard.ages.at/?l=en of 1,050 this month. Thursday's official count confirmed earlier reports by newspapers Kronen Zeitung and Oesterreich.
In terms of cases in the past two weeks relative to its population https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/cases-2019-ncov-eueea, Austria has more than twice as many as neighbouring Germany, which on Thursday extended its travel warning to include eight of the Alpine nation's nine provinces, a fresh blow to Austria's winter tourism industry.
Austria still has far fewer daily cases than two similarly sized neighbours, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, which have recently introduced stricter measures to bring their surging infections under control.
As of Friday, Austria is lowering its limit for private indoor gatherings to six people from 10, and capping outdoor gatherings at 12 people. Professionally organised events will be limited to 1,000 people indoors and 1,500 outdoors. Restaurants, bars, schools and theatres remain open.
(Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
