IIn Austria, compulsory corona vaccination for 7.4 million adult residents is to come into force at the beginning of February. This is what an adapted draft law provides for, which the Christian-Democratic-Green government presented in Vienna on Sunday afternoon. Parliament is scheduled to vote on it on Thursday. “We will decide on vaccination as planned,” said Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP).
The concerns about this “sensitive topic” are taken seriously, assured Nehammer. Therefore, necessary adjustments were made in the parliamentary procedure, in which many objections and proposals for amendments to the original draft, which has been available since December, have been made.
The government also coordinated with the constructive part of the opposition, said the Chancellor, and thanked the party leaders of the social democratic SPÖ and the liberal Neos, Pamela Rendi-Wagner and Beate Meinl-Reisinger. The right-wing FPÖ under Herbert Kickl is taking a sharp stand against corona measures, especially against compulsory vaccination. According to police estimates, 27,000 demonstrators followed a protest call by the FPÖ in Vienna on Saturday.
Government evaluation
In contrast to the original draft, compulsory vaccination should only apply from the age of 18. As Nehammer, Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (Greens) and Constitutional Minister Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP) explained, it will be introduced in three phases. First, each household is informed in writing. From March 16th, a violation of the vaccination requirement will become a “control offence”, which means that the police will check the vaccination status on a random basis, with priority checks or as part of other official acts (e.g. in road traffic).
Those who are not vaccinated then have to pay a fine of 600 euros. If he doesn’t pay or objects, a “proper procedure” will be initiated, similar to traffic offences, which can lead to a fine of up to 3,600 euros (depending on income). Such a fine can be imposed no more than four times a year.
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In a third phase, the government sets a deadline by which every unvaccinated person will receive a reminder. It is based on the electronic vaccination register that Austria introduced in 2020 and that is currently being supplemented by people who live in the country but do not have a social security number. Because this supplement has not yet been completed by the operating company, the register cannot be used from the start.
Anyone who has not been vaccinated by this date will then receive a penal order in an automated, comprehensive procedure. However, before this third phase, an evaluation by the government is planned as to whether this is still epidemiologically necessary, as well as another parliamentary decision.
Pregnant women and people who cannot be vaccinated for special health reasons (there is a specific list of possible illnesses here) are exempt from the obligation to vaccinate. The corresponding certificates are issued by medical officers. The original approach, according to which general practitioners could also do this, for example, had been criticized by professional representatives who feared that doctors could be pressured into issuing certificates of favour.
“We are not individuals who live detached from each other”
The law gives the Minister of Health the option of specifying adapted vaccination intervals or vaccines by ordinance. Mückstein said that for the relatively large number of people living in Austria who were vaccinated with the Russian vaccine “Sputnik”, which is not approved in the EU, options for a solution were being examined. According to figures from the Ministry of Health, 7.4 million of the 8.9 million are currently subject to vaccination. Of them, 5.8 million are already fully vaccinated, the rest do not have a valid vaccination certificate or the certificate has expired.
Several hundred thousand certificates expired in February, so those affected would have to get their booster vaccination by then. In any case, it should still be possible to free yourself from a penalty by quickly catching up on a vaccination before the administrative procedure is completed.
Nehammer emphasized that the obligation to vaccinate is not aimed at people who have so far refused vaccination. It’s about the common good. “We are not individuals who live detached from each other, but we are a community.” Mückstein said: “Vaccination protects, it protects us and it also protects our fellow human beings.”