Saturday 23 October 2021
“Too many hesitants and procrastinators”
Austria threatens the unvaccinated with lockdown
It is an announcement with force: If the corona situation worsens, unvaccinated Austrians must expect exit restrictions in the future. The government in Vienna wants to convince even the last skeptics of an injection.
In the Corona crisis, Austria’s government is increasing the pressure on unvaccinated people with a drastic threat. If the situation in the intensive care units worsened dramatically, unprotected people would have to expect exit restrictions, said Austria’s Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg on Friday evening after a meeting with the Prime Minister. “We are about to stumble into a pandemic of unprotected unvaccinated people,” said the head of government. Schallenberg ruled out a lockdown for those who had been vaccinated or recovered. He hoped that these plans would send a signal. There are still too many “hesitants and procrastinators,” said Schallenberg, referring to the vaccination skeptics.
Despite the recent significant increase in the number of new infections, the situation in Austria’s intensive care units is still largely stable. There are currently around 220 intensive care beds occupied by Covid patients. Should this number rise to 600, then the fifth and final stage of the step-by-step plan with massive exit restrictions for unvaccinated people would be reached. “We are currently at level one, we are looking very far into the future,” said Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein.
FPÖ stirs up vaccination skepticism
The seven-day incidence is just under 230 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and week. In Germany it is currently around 95. The rate of fully vaccinated people is 62 percent, which is slightly below the German figure.
The government recently decided that from November 1st, many employees in the workplace will have to prove whether they have been vaccinated, regularly tested or have recovered from Covid-19. In the new step-by-step plan, it is now planned that from an occupancy of 400 intensive care beds, only PCR tests are valid as evidence.
The great dynamic in vaccinations in early summer had weakened extremely in the last few weeks. On some days only a few thousand doses of corona vaccines were injected. The right-wing FPÖ fueled the vaccination skepticism considerably. In the most recent state parliament election in Upper Austria, the newly formed party of vaccination critics MFG (people, freedom, basic rights) immediately reached six percent and entered the state parliament.