BERLIN (Reuters) – Austria will tighten up on mask-wearing and social distancing at public events and in restaurants from Monday in response to the accelerating spread of the coronavirus pandemic in the country, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Friday.

Wearing of masks will be compulsory in shops, in all public transport and in schools outside classrooms from Monday, he said. Private events will be limited to 50 participants indoors and 100 outdoors, while professionally-organised seated events could run to up to 1,500 people indoors and 3,000 outdoors.

The daily number of infections has been rising since late June and reached 644 on Thursday, the highest number since late March, when an initial spike in infections was fading under a national lockdown.

“Precisely because the summer went well and people can’t quite believe that the numbers are rising once again, I call on all of us to together take the situation seriously,” Kurz told a news conference.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Caroline Copley)

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