Austria to make Covid vaccine mandatory from February

310
2
Austria to make Covid vaccine mandatory from February

Austria plans to make vaccination against Covid 19 mandatory for its wider population from February, the country s coalition government has announced after consulting scientists and legal experts.

Karoline Edtstadler, Minister for EU and constitutional affairs, said we didn't want a vaccine mandate, let me make that explicit. We are in a situation that is dramatic if you look at intensive care units at hospitals 20 months after the start of the epidemic. Edtstadler, of the conservative Austrian People's party VP, said that only a general vaccine mandate would get the country closer to its goal of avoiding a fifth or sixth wave of the virus.

Austria is about halfway through a 20 day lockdown, its fourth of the pandemic, after experiencing one of the steepest surges in cases in Europe. On 19 November, the chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, announced that his government would prepare the ground for mandatory vaccination against Covid 19 from 1 February, which would make it the first country in the west to take such a step.

The health minister, Wolfgang M ckstein, said that it represented an intrusion into our basic and civil liberties and that the government had set up discussions with the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Austria SP and the New Austria and Liberal Forum NEOS. The Freedom Party FP, which is trying to challenge the vaccine mandate legally, was not invited.

A draft law will not be presented until the week of 6 December, but several politicians have signalled that vaccination would be mandatory but not compulsory, meaning no one would be forcibly injected.

In Austria, constitutional lawyers have advised making vaccination mandatory for anyone over 14 years old, which is the age of criminal responsibility. One report in Die Presse newspaper suggested it could be mandatory from 12 with exceptions for those who are advised not to take the jab for health reasons.

A fine of €3,600 3,000 could be issued twice if a person refuses to be vaccinated. The government didn't give any comment on Tuesday about the details of the law mentioned in the press.

As of this week, 67% of Austria's population is fully vaccinated, and 70% have received one vaccine.