Europe’s unvaccinated rebel against restrictions
SHOUTING cries of “freedom” and “resistance”, Europe’s unvaccinated are in open rebellion, taking to the streets against a host of new mandates and restrictions as the continent’s Covid-19 cases soar. Their anger comes as their world is shrinking. Branded with a proverbial Scarlet “A”, the anti-vaxxers of Europe are finding themselves ostracised from public life far more than their American counterparts.
Many are not taking it sitting down. The EU is no stranger to protests against Covid-19 measures. But there has been a convergence of large and sometimes violent demonstrations in multiple countries.
In what the mayor of Rotterdam, decried as an “orgy of violence”at the weekend, Dutch police opened fire and arrested scores of rioters who set fires and lobbed stones at officers amid a new partial lockdown and proposed law that would ban the unvaccinated from entering businesses even with a negative coronavirus test. Thousands also marched against mandates or restrictions in Belgium, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland and Switzerland.
In Vienna, where the unvaccinated face the prospect of extended lockdowns and a revolutionary decree compelling them to take their jabs whether they like it or not, an estimated 40 000 demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday, some of them clashing with police as night fell.
The simmering discontent was not confined to Europe. In Australia, thousands turned out against pandemic legislation in “freedom” marches in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. France deployed special police forces to its overseas territory of Guadeloupe after days of unrest that saw protesters set fire to cars and block roads in opposition to French vaccine and health pass mandates.
The outburst of anger – particularly in Europe, a place American liberals often look to as a beacon of progressive values on climate change, social benefits and universal health care – illustrates just how challenging it may be for rich nations to overcome vaccine hesitancy and push closer to near-total coverage rates.
Europe’s creep toward winter has brought a dangerous escalation in cases – in some countries, the highest of the pandemic – and indoor gatherings in colder weather are not the only culprit. With nearly 67% of its population fully vaccinated, the EU has leapfrogged the US on doses administered. But across the continent, there are stubborn geographic, demographic and ideological pockets of the unvaccinated serving as tinder for severe cases of the virus to rekindle.
In response, European leaders are embracing novel coercive techniques to compel the unvaccinated to take their shots, setting up a political experiment that is being closely watched on the other side of the Atlantic, where the US has turned to more limited vaccine mandates for federal employees, government contractors, health-care workers and staff of large companies.
Italy’s “green pass” system imposes work suspensions or restrictions on access to a range of businesses for those without vaccinations or recent tests. France embraced a “health pass” requiring vaccination or a recent negative coronavirus test to access restaurants, cafés, movie theatres and more.
In Romania, where the number of infections is rocketing, the unvaccinated were targeted in October for a special curfew later extended to everyone as cases continued to spike. Vaccination certificates are still required for regular activities like working out at gyms or shopping at malls.
No European nation has gone as far as Austria. A spike in cases coupled with vaccine hesitancy – 64% of the population is fully vaccinated, a rate lower than that in Italy, France, Portugal and Germany – prompted leaders there to announce a nationwide vaccination mandate starting in February.
The country has declared a lockdown of the unvaccinated. The government later imposed Europe’s first broader national lockdown of the autumn. It started yesterday and will last at least 10 days. After that, the lockdown may end for the vaccinated, but the unvaccinated will still face entry restrictions at hotels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, gyms, cinemas, theatres, Christmas markets and ski resorts.
New Zealand, meanwhile, will adopt a new system of living withcovid-19 from December 3, which will end tough restrictions and allow businesses to operate in its biggest city, Auckland, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday. New Zealand remained largely Covid-19 free until August but has been unable to beat an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant, forcing Ardern to abandon an elimination strategy and switch to treating the virus as endemic.
Auckland has been in lockdown for over 90 days. The new system will rate regions as red, orange or green depending on their level of exposure to Covid-19 and vaccination rates. Auckland will start at red, making masks mandatory and putting limits on gatherings at public places.