In the face of a vaccination rate that does not take off, the Austrians over the age of 18 must now be vaccinated against the CVIV-19 under penalty of incurring a strong fine.
Le Monde with AFP
The measurement is unprecedented in the European Union. Austrians over the age of 18 must now be vaccinated against CIVID-19 under penalty of incurring a strong fine. The law, adopted on 20 January by Parliament, came into force on Saturday, February 5, marking the culmination of a process started in November, in the face of the dazzling propagation of the epidemic.
The government has decided to opt for the strong way despite criticism, stand out from its European partners. “No other country in Europe does not follow us on the mandatory vaccine,” says Manuel Krautgartner, who has committed in politics against the sanitary rules in Linz (North).
In the neighboring Germany, a similar project, defended by the new Social Democratic Olaf Scholz, began to be debated on January 26, at the Bundestag. However, it has fallen back on the background of divisions of the political class.
Immunion lagging
Despite this drastic measure, the vaccination rate has not taken off in Austria, still below the levels observed in France or Spain – around 70% of the population.
In a Vienna vaccination center, which has taken up its neighborhoods since the end of November in the premises of an Art Deco pool to combine the useful to the pleasant, dozens of people patient. The Arbeiter Samariter Bund humanitarian association, responsible for supervising operations, has seen a shudder in recent days. “We recorded a small increase of about 9% compared to last week,” said Michael Hausmann at AFP.
Of the 7,000 injections administered on average daily in Vienna, only 10% are primo-vaccinated, he says. In Austria, non-vaccinated are excluded from restaurants, sporting and cultural places. From now on, they will also be submitted to fines.
All major residents are concerned by the law, with the exception of pregnant women, those who have contracted the virus less than 180 days ago and finally those who can be exempt for reasons Medical.
Controls, however, will begin only mid-March: Sanctions can then be applied, for an amount ranging from 600 to 3,600 euros, but they will be lifted if the offender obeys within two weeks.
Exception in the world
If more than 60% of Austrians support the government decision based on a recent survey, large people in the population remain strongly opposed. For several weeks after the project announcement, tens of thousands of people went down the street to remove a qualified measure of radical and liberticide.
Critics have also emerged on the meaning of this law about the slightest severity of the Omicron variant and the explosion of the number of cases. But for the Minister of Health Wolfgang Mückstein, you have to prepare “to fight against new variants” that might appear in the coming months.
The vaccinal pass is needed in a growing number of countries for certain occupations or activities, but anti-Covid vaccination for all remains, an exception. It was thus decreed in Ecuador, Indonesia or in two authoritarian states of Central Asia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.