Austria first to lock down the unvaccinated

People walk past a vaccination point amidst the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, as Austria's government imposes a lockdown on people who are not fully vaccinated, in Vienna, Austria November 14, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

Austria yesterday became the first country in the European Union to impose a lockdown on the unvaccinated and start inoculating children as young as five after coronavirus cases surged across the continent. Infection rates have zoomed, placing Western Europe once again at the heart of the global epidemic and governments are being forced to take action with The Netherlands already announcing the region’s first partial lockdown of the winter. Austria has inoculated about 65% of its nine million people, below the EU average of 67%. Daily new infection rates have been hovering at around 12,000 in recent weeks, up from roughly 2,000 a day in September. But the restrictions on the unvaccinated have fuelled accusations that Austria is cementing a “two-class system,” said Nikolaus Unterguggenberger, a teacher from Carinthia province, whose family is not vaccinated. The 57-year-old said his two sons and one of his daughters this week had to leave their music clubs because of the lockdown rules. “Our freedoms are being taken away from us... I was afraid it would come to this, but that Austria so easily passes this, that surprises me,” he told AFP, adding that the measure was illegal and that he would continue to go out and meet friends. Hundreds also gathered in Vienna on Sunday to protest. “This restricts my life, my freedom. It’s time that more people spoke up,” Sabine, a 49-year-old energy consultant, told AFP at the rally, calling the move “discrimination”. As part of efforts to increase vaccination coverage, authorities in Vienna have also become the first in the EU to start jabbing children between the ages of five and 11. Cartoons of ninja turtles and tigers adorned coronavirus vaccination booths yesterday to welcome children at a convention complex serving as a vaccine centre. One of the first to step in was eight-year-old Pia Schwarzl. She told AFP the jab had hurt “a little” but that she was looking forward to “staying at home and playing” for the day. Her father, 41-year-old Gerald Schwarzl, said he had decided to have Pia and her five-year-old brother Theo vaccinated so that they “don’t get seriously sick”. “We believe they will be protected just like they are with other vaccinations that they’ve had,” he said. The city authorities said some 10,000 appointments had been made for children over the weekend, and they had the capacity to vaccinate 200 youngsters a day. The European Medicines Agency has not yet approved any of the coronavirus vaccines for the five-to-11 age bracket. But Vienna’s Mayor Michael Ludwig said the situation was “serious” and that the city had the right to pursue a more “determined path”. Austria hopes these measures can stem the virus and take the pressure off struggling intensive care units. It also wants to drive up what it calls the “shamefully low” rate of fully vaccinated residents. The interior ministry has promised extra patrols to implement the lockdown, widely criticised as unenforceable and unlikely on its own to reduce contacts.