Austria planning to mandate COVID-19 shots for all adults
Austria on Friday became the first Western democracy to announce that it would mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for its entire adult population as it prepared for a nationwide lockdown starting Monday.
The extraordinary measure by Austria, which only days ago separated itself from the rest of Europe by introducing a lockdown for the unvaccinated, who are driving a surge of infections, made for another alarming statement about the severity of the fourth wave of the virus in Europe, now the epicenter of the pandemic.
But it also showed that increasingly desperate governments are losing their patience with vaccine skeptics and shifting from voluntary to obligatory measures to promote vaccinations and beat back a virus that shows no sign of waning, rattling global markets at the prospect that still tentative economic recoveries will be undone.
Some European countries — including Germany, which once seemed a model of how to manage the virus — are now facing their worst levels of infections in the nearly two years since the pandemic began.
The surge, health authorities say, is being driven by stubborn resistance to getting vaccinated in deep pockets of the population, cold weather driving people indoors, and loosened restrictions, rather than new variants.
“For a long time — maybe too long — I and others assumed that it must be possible to convince people in Austria to voluntarily get vaccinated,” Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg of Austria said Friday. “We therefore have reached a very difficult decision to introduce a national vaccine mandate.”
With its latest move, Austria significantly moved ahead of other European countries that have inched up to, but not crossed, a threshold that once seemed unthinkable. The announcement drew an immediate threat of violent protest this weekend by leaders of anti-vaccine movements and the far-right Freedom Party.
Many European countries have already instituted mandates in all but name only — requiring strict health passes as proof of vaccination, recovery from infection or a negative test to partake in most social functions, travel or to go to work. Many already require children to be vaccinated against measles and other illnesses to attend school.
The notion of requiring vaccination in adults against COVID was a line that Europe had seemed unwilling to cross, however, with leaders often contrasting their respect for civil liberties with authoritarian-styled countries.
But just as lockdowns have become a fact of life, vaccine mandates are increasingly becoming plausible. German lawmakers in parliament voted Thursday to force unvaccinated people going to work or using public transit to provide daily test results. The country’s vaccination rate among adults is about 79%, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute in Germany. The rate is one of the lowest in Western Europe.
On Friday, Jens Spahn, the acting health minister in Germany, was asked whether a general lockdown was possible for the country. “We are in a position where nothing should be ruled out,” he said.
Austria’s new vaccine mandate will take effect in February, in the hopes that as many people as possible will be motivated to sign up for their initial inoculations but also booster shots, Austria’s health minister, Wolfgang Mückstein, said.
It also gave leaders time to formalize legal guidelines for the mandate, he said, adding that there would be exceptions for people who are not able to be vaccinated.
The health ministry said Friday’s announcement was only the first step in drawing up a law that would establish the mandate, a process that would involve civil society and a careful review.
Details about how the law would be carried out and enforced would not be available until the process had been completed, it said.