Austria is days away from placing millions of people not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on lockdown, as daily infections are at a record high and intensive-care units are increasingly strained, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said on Thursday.
Around 65% of Austria‘s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, national statistics show. Austria has the lowest vaccination rate of any Western European country apart from tiny Liechtenstein, according to European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data.
Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccinations, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third-biggest in parliament.
Under an incremental government plan agreed in September, once 30% of intensive-care beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients, people not vaccinated against the coronavirus will be placed under lockdown, with restrictions on their daily movements. The current level is 20% and rising fast.
“According to the incremental plan we actually have just days until we have to introduce the lockdown for unvaccinated people,” Schallenberg told a news conference, adding that Austria‘s vaccination rate is “shamefully low”.
The conservative-led government said on Friday it was banning the unvaccinated from restaurants, theatres, ski lifts and providers of “services close to the body” like hairdressers.
“A lockdown for the unvaccinated means one cannot leave one’s home unless one is going to work, shopping (for essentials), stretching one’s legs – namely exactly what we all had to suffer through in 2020,” Schallenberg said, referring to three national lockdowns last year.
After Schallenberg’s announcement the conservative governor of the province of Upper Austria, a Freedom Party stronghold that has the lowest vaccination rate and the highest infection rate of Austria‘s nine provinces, said it planned to introduce a lockdown for the unvaccinated on Monday.
It will be introduced “provided there is a legal green light from the federal government and/or it creates the legal basis for it”, Governor Thomas Stelzer said in a statement, adding that the situation in his province is “dramatic”.
The Netherlands meanwhile will impose Western Europe’s first partial lockdown since the summer this weekend Dutch broadcaster NOS said on Friday.
Bars, restaurants and non-essential stores will be ordered to close at 7 P.M. for at least three weeks starting Saturday, NOS said, citing government sources.
People will be urged to work from home as much as possible, and no audiences will be allowed at sporting events in the coming weeks. Schools, theatres and cinemas would remain open.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s cabinet will take a final decision later on Friday, and will announce the new measures during a televised press conference scheduled for 1800 GMT.
New coronavirus infections in the country of 17.5 million have increased rapidly after social distancing measures were dropped late September and hit a record of around 16,300 in 24 hours on Thursday.
The new wave of infections has put pressure on hospitals throughout the country, forcing them to scale back regular care again to treat COVID-19 patients.
To contain the outbreak, the government’s pandemic advisory panel on Thursday recommended imposing a partial lockdown and to limit entrance to public places to people who have been fully vaccinated or have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection.
A new lockdown would mean a drastic turn in policy for the Dutch government, which until last month thought that a relatively high vaccination rate would mean it could further ease measures towards the end of the year.
But it is not alone in considering strict measures as infections spike to record levels. Austria on Thursday said it was days away from placing millions of unvaccinated people in lockdown.
Many developed countries, however, are sticking to the view that vaccine rollouts mean lockdowns are unnecessary, with Britain, for instance, relying on booster shots to increase immunity.
Around 85% of the adult Dutch population has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Booster shots have so far only been provided to a small group of people with weak immune systems, and will be offered to people aged 80 years and older in December.
Last month, roughly 55% of patients in Dutch hospitals and 70% of those in intensive care were unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated, data provided by the Netherlands’ Institute for Health (RIVM) showed.
REUTERS