大象传媒

Austria has announced a full national Covid-19 lockdown starting on Monday and a legal requirement to get vaccinated from 1 February 2022, in response to record case numbers being reported, and one of the lowest vaccination levels in Western Europe. For a long time, there had been a consensus over avoiding mandatory vaccinations but latest figures show the incidence rate has risen to 1,049.9 cases per 100,000 people in the past week.

Emma Midgely, a freelance journalist, says that vaccination take up had been extremely low in certain areas, and hospitals were reported to have been overwhelmed. She went on to say that she was aware of many people objecting to the new restrictions but that there had been a surge in vaccinations since the lockdown for the unvaccinated was imposed last week. A contributor to the OS programme called the mandate "a devastating development for future interventions by the state".

Photo: People walk towards a vaccine centre in Vienna, Austria Credit: Reuters