Retirement and nursing homes shared responsibility for implementing the Epidemics Act and were also empowered to use coercive measures. Information to this effect was given to the residents and their relatives. Commissions 4 and 5 found notices in several homes of one operator with the following content: “Persons who nevertheless leave the pensioners’ residential building must go into mandatory quarantine for 14 days upon their return”. One resident who despite curfew and a warning rebelled against being isolated in her apartment by leaving the grounds of the home to quickly buy something was threatened with termination of her contract. The NPM was able to avert the unilateral termination of the home contract. Curfews in several homes In a home in Lower Austria, all of the residents were told not to go outside but to stay inside all of the time. Entrances and exits were not actually locked during the day. However, a crowd barrier was placed between the road and garden entrance to prevent anyone from leaving the home. Furthermore, there were fears that some relatives could use the ground level terraces adjacent to the rooms to circumvent the visiting ban. One home in Tyrol reacted with a written warning and threatened to terminate the home contract of a women confined to a wheelchair who spoke to her son in the garden of the nursing home while observing social distancing. The commissions also observed “preventive” isolation of residents on monitoring visits to homes in Burgenland, Styria and Salzburg. This had not been imposed by the health authorities, that is, there was no evidence of contact with them. The predominant cases were not only limited to residents leaving the grounds of the home to go outside or visit relatives. Isolation was frequently imposed after release from hospital or on new admissions even when a negative PCR test had been made in advance and a certificate had been presented. Up to 14 days “precautionary” quarantine (from August 2020 usually ten days) in isolation was the reaction when residents had to undergo out-patient treatment and it could not be ruled out that they had become infected during organised ambulance transport or during the treatment. The situation was particularly dramatic for dialysis patients who were not allowed to even leave their rooms for several weeks and had no personal contact with relatives or other residents. 14 days quarantine in the room Infection prevention that results in massive restrictions of freedom and social isolation for those in need of care condones damage to their physical and mental health and contributes to a deterioration of (dementia) illness (see Nebois-Zeman/Jaquemar, “COVID-19 aus Sicht der Bewohnervertretung nach HeimAufG” – “COVID-19 from the perspective of representatives of the residents pursuant to the Nursing and Residential Homes Residence Act”, ÖZPR 2020/100, issue 6, p. 180 et seq.). A Human Rights Advisory Council working group provided the NPM with recommendations depicting a target situation. This thesis was published on the AOB website. The NPM too considers restrictions to freedom for observing hygiene measures or preventing infection Recommendations of the Human Rights Advisory Council 34