Austria is the first Western democracy to mandate COVID-19
vaccinations for nearly its entire adult population, a once-unthinkable move
that is being seen as a test case for other countries grappling with pockets of
vaccine resistance.
اضافة اعلان
The sweeping measure, which easily cleared its final
parliamentary hurdle Thursday when it was approved by lawmakers in Austria’s
upper house, was signed into law Friday by President Alexander Van der Bellen
of Austria.
The requirement will be introduced in phases.
First, the government plans to send a letter to all Austrians in
the next few weeks, notifying them of the new rules and giving them a month to
comply. Exemptions will be available only to pregnant women, people who cannot
be vaccinated for medical reasons and people who have recently recovered from
COVID-19. In this first phase, no fines will be imposed for failure to comply.
That changes in mid-March, when police are to start conducting
random checks of vaccination status — including during traffic stops. People
who cannot produce proof of vaccination can be fined up to 600 euros (about
$675). Those who contest their fines could eventually see them increased to
3,600 euros (about $4,100).
In a third phase, for which no starting date has yet been set,
the government would create a formal vaccination registry of all residents and
automatically assess fines for noncompliance. If the pandemic recedes enough,
though, this phase might never be put into effect, officials say.
Polls suggest that many Austrians support the mandate, but the
issue has also galvanized a noisy protest movement there. Tens of thousands of
demonstrators have taken to the streets in recent months to oppose pandemic
restrictions, chief among them the vaccine mandate, which was first proposed in
November. At the time, cases were surging in the country, driven mostly by
unvaccinated people, and Austria introduced a lockdown that applied only to the
unvaccinated.
About 76% of people in Austria are now fully vaccinated. Even
so, a surge that began in late December has sent new cases soaring to record
levels; the daily average has nearly doubled in the past two weeks.
Making vaccines mandatory rather than voluntary has been a
threshold that European democracies have long seemed unwilling to cross. Leaders
have stressed respect for civil liberties and drawn contrasts with the policies
of more authoritarian governments. But as the pandemic stretches into a third
year with vaccination rates plateauing in a number of countries, some leaders
have changed their minds.
“The path to freedom is the vaccine mandate,” Chancellor Karl
Nehammer of Austria said when the law was debated in Parliament last month.
Last year, when he was interior minister, Nehammer noted the
difficulty that governments faced in persuading skeptical people to get
inoculated voluntarily.
“It is not a question of ideology; it is a question of
convincing,” he said. “We can’t do and try enough to convince so that the
unvaccinated get vaccinated.”
Other countries are watching Austria’s move to a near-universal
mandate closely.
In neighboring Germany, where about 1 in 3 people are not
considered to be fully vaccinated, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced plans
for a general vaccine mandate, and the country is slated to introduce one next
month for health care workers and residents of nursing homes and care
facilities. Italy now requires nearly everyone older than 50 to be vaccinated;
Greece has a similar rule for residents older than 60.
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