Vienna, Nov 7 (IANS): Austria on Saturday reported 8,241 new Covid-19 infections within the past 24 hours, another all-time high since the outbreak of the pandemic, according to data published by the Ministry of Interior.

So far, there have been 147,220 positive test results in the Alpine country. Currently, 3,006 people are in hospital for Covid-19 treatment, and 432 of them are in intensive care units, the data showed.

A total of 1,377 people have died as a result of COVID-19 since March, and a quarter of the deaths are registered in the past ten days. "The second wave is stronger and more powerful," said Health Minister Rudolf Anschober at a press conference on Friday.

He said that while many young people became infected in the summer, the average age of new patients is now shifting towards the risk groups, as a "significantly increasing" number of cases are reported in nursing homes, Xinhua reported.

The Minister noted that contact tracing has also become a problem, as only 27 percent of the cases can be traced back to their origin.

This is due to overburdened health authorities, and on the other hand, "people give false information on the phone," he said.

Anschober also explained that it would take at least ten days before the effectiveness of the country's second lockdown, which came into force on Tuesday, could be evaluated.

As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, countries including Germany, France, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States are racing to find a vaccine.

According to the website of the World Health Organization, as of Nov. 3, there were 202 Covid-19 candidate vaccines being developed worldwide, and 47 of them were in clinical trials.