Austria unvaccinated lockdown

[MRex]

How is this expected to actually work in practice? I have only seen basic UK news articles, interested mostly to understand the practical implications.

Personal views without knowing detail: I simply don't see any way this can be achieved without infringing on personal freedoms of unvaccinated and vaccinated quite significantly. I'm very pro-vax in general and for covid, but I hope the UK doesn't start anything like this, seems like it would just have anyone digging their heels in and cause a lot of social unrest issues.

@Chessie678

I find it incredibly depressing to see history repeating itself like this. It feels like no moral progress has been made since witches were burnt at the stake.

You divide society into the "clean" and the "unclean". You blame the "unclean" for whatever has gone wrong and whip up fear over the danger they pose. You restrict their freedom or outright persecute them. And sometimes you say - well if they just convert from their belief system they wouldn't be subject to this treatment so it's their choice.

The rationale seems stronger to people this time because it's "science" based and not religion based but I think it's exactly the same mentality behind it. People get scared and acquiesce in their government scapegoating a particular group and because they are not personally affected by the measures that group is subjected to and they do not agree with their beliefs they can shrug and go on with their lives.

And I say this as someone who is very pro-vaccination and all for strong public information campaigns to try to get people vaccinated.

I was concerned about lockdowns in part because I didn't want governments stripping away fundamental rights and freedoms to become normalised as part of governance and I think that fear was well-founded. You can see on this thread that people being denied the freedom to go the church / restaurants / the theatre etc. is no longer seen as a big deal by many.

Great post

@Chessie678 @MauraandLaura
But surely that’s inflammatory again? I don’t view unvaccinated as ‘unclean’ - I’ve never even thought of it in that way.

These are decisions made by not just one government, not just left leaning or right leaning governments, but all governments. Indeed if we had a left wing government in power in the UK. I think they’d be doing more to protect the vulnerable and there would be a greater focus on protecting the NHS.
These are health measures. The most precious thing we have is life. I’d question if it wasn’t being enforced all over comparable countries worldwide, but it is. And I would imagine that’s because the most eminent health professionals worldwide collectively think it’s the best way to save lives and protect the vulnerable.
And I’m not a compliant, blind, unthinking person. I’ve watched and heard the ‘other side” and it makes no sense to me.

@Chessie678 @MauraandLaura @MercyBooth if you disagree so strongly with what the majority of governments are enforcing worldwide, then who do you want in power? What’s the answer? How should things change?

"**You can see on this thread that people being denied the freedom to go the church / restaurants / the theatre etc. is no longer seen as a big deal by many."

Of course it's a bit deal but it's nothing new. Many of these things are restricted for certain groups. Lack of disabled access, economic disadvantaged means many are 'locked out' of certain areas of society already. Nobody has the 'right' to go to the cinema, for example. It's conditional upon being able to afford a ticket, prove you meet age requirements and there are behavioural expectations. I'm not saying I agree with vaccine passes, rather I'm pointing out that's it's not a free and equal society for many reasons, not just covid.

@middleager I agree that this will be an interesting time to look back on. I don’t think it will look great in hindsight. (It doesn’t look great to some of us right now!)

I do broadly agree with body autonomy and personal freedom, but when it impacts the health of another? If say : I read an article by a niche doctor suggesting that smoking won’t effect my baby during pregnancy, if I shared that article widely on social media, if I said I’d continue to smoke during my pregnancy because of my belief in body autonomy and personal freedom (despite the majority of doctors saying it’s not ok) - is that right?

@Chessie678 an excellent post I agree with absolutely all of it. The MSM are referring to 'the unvaccinated' it is a label, a sublte way of demonising people. The inference in this as you say, is that there are two camps. It is a classic division tactic. People can deny this is the case all they like. Maybe they aren't very perceptive. The sort of intolerant authoritarian views coming out on this forum are becoming the norm, which is an appalling state of affairs.

@SpringKit no one is sharing ‘niche’ articles about the vaccine being less effective at preventing infection/transmission than it is at preventing serious illness. It’s pretty widely known at this point.

If people who get put in lockdown still send dc to school and go to work then it’s not going to do anywhere near as much as before, esp with delta, so it’s probably more a big stick for increased take up than anything else

@SpringKit

I do broadly agree with body autonomy and personal freedom, but when it impacts the health of another? If say : I read an article by a niche doctor suggesting that smoking won’t effect my baby during pregnancy, if I shared that article widely on social media, if I said I’d continue to smoke during my pregnancy because of my belief in body autonomy and personal freedom (despite the majority of doctors saying it’s not ok) - is that right?

Actually bodily autonomy and personally freedom is precisely the thing that means you can smoke when pregnant and you won’t be fined, arrested, have your baby removed and so on - just advised not to

@bumbleymummy I wasn’t referring to anyone here, I was giving a, perhaps extreme, example and I do believe in society there are people who are basing their decision on articles by niche doctors.

Would it be right for a person who believes it’s ok to smoke during pregnancy, to work in a maternity unit and share those beliefs with her patients?

I’m just asking if it’s right or not.

Tbh the advice about the vaccine itself for pregnant women (no need to use a rather flawed analogy about smoking) has been very contradictory and confusing, with many women advised not to take it by HCPs.

Really shocking to hear this on BBC news this morning. Headline, but spoken as if it was normal.

65% of Austrians are vaccinated the news said and they’re saying that is low ...

[quote SpringKit]**@Chessie678* @MauraandLaura* @MercyBooth if you disagree so strongly with what the majority of governments are enforcing worldwide, then who do you want in power? What’s the answer? How should things change?[/quote]
This is an odd question tbh

Hard to know where to start ...

If you can’t see the obvious it’s not really worth the time and energy it takes to explain just the basics etc

@Sian73

Really shocking to hear this on BBC news this morning. Headline, but spoken as if it was normal.

65% of Austrians are vaccinated the news said and they’re saying that is low ...

It is pretty low compared to countries like Portugal and Spain. Especially as I think Austria is also double vaccinating 12+ age group. It's certainly not enough to not need to keep a very close eye on things.

The U.K. is 69%

Is that right?

Keeping an eye on things is not quite what Austria is doing now - is it.

I presume they think it will encourage people to be vaccinated 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Geamhradh maybe the fact that they’re including over 12s is what makes it seem lower? I know the take up in teens hasn’t been so high. If they just looked at adults, the percentage would probably be much higher.

@Pippi1970

I presume they think it will encourage people to be vaccinated 🤷🏼‍♀️

Encourage ... and if they have researched and decided it's not the right thing to do?

You think this is a good way to go about it Pippa? An acceptable way?

It really is being done to just try and increase vaccination rates

There’s a list of things you can do. They include go to work, school, church, supermarket, essential things, see family and close friends, healthcare, out anywhere as long as no close contact, click and collect etc etc

There’s not really anything particularly restrictive on the list except leisure shopping ie browsing for clothing, leisure ie cinema, or eating out.
You can still click and collect or online clothing, put up a home cinema in garden and invite 1000 people for bbq as private

@Caspianberg so what is it actually going to achieve then?

I think an earlier poster mentioned that this could backfire if restricting the unvaccinated doesn’t result in a drop in cases.

@bumbleymummy - it’s literally to try and increase vaccination rate as it’s does limit ‘fun’ stuff like socialising on uni campus, skiing, travel, eating out etc. so I guess they hope another 5-10% will just have it now so they can do that

@SpringKit
I don't think conformity amongst governments is a convincing moral argument. By that logic, slavery / persecution of Jews, Christians etc. / racism / subjugation of women was all fine because all or most of the world was doing it at some points in history. It might show that you can get away with a particular behaviour against a certain group because the public will accept it and your neighbours aren't going to challenge you.

I don't think "unclean" is hyperbole here. I'm sure you don't use the word yourself because it is political charged due to the way it has been used in history. But the concept is exactly the same - this group and diseased and dangerous; this other group is safe.

The logic that subjecting the unvaccinated to this sort of detriment is ok because it's for health / scientific / data driven reasons and therefore the rationale is good doesn't hold to me. I think historic persecution of religious groups was wrong because persecution is wrong - not because actually these religious groups had sensible religious ideas which should have been respected. I'm sure people who persecuted (say) pagans in the past thought that their beliefs were stupid and dangerous and that the persecution was therefore justified. By the same reasoning, I think stripping fundamental rights away from a portion of the population based on their beliefs is wrong (with some caveats around how the criminal justice system functions). That said, I don't think the scientific rationale for the measures is particularly strong either.

One group has a somewhat higher likelihood of having one specific illness which is not a significant risk to the majority of the population. Within that group of unvaccinated people, there will be many who pose less of a risk than many vaccinated people (e.g. because they have little contact with the public or have recently had covid). There is very little evidence that restricting a relatively small percentage of the population from a list of specific activities and letting them do other activities will make a difference to covid transmission rates and it is even more of a leap to think that this will save lives in the long term given that most people will catch covid at some point. It's clearly much more about coercing people to get the covid without outright forcing them and scapegoating a particular group to blame for covid than it is about public health.

@containsnuts
Well yes it's true that many people can't access cinemas etc. anyway but I'm not sure that makes it better to make it illegal for another group from accessing these services. You could make the same argument about the apartheid - some people couldn't access the facilities closed to black people anyway so it doesn't matter that black people were also shut out from them? (I'm not comparing this to the apartheid, which was different and much worse for lots of reasons).

[quote Caspianberg]@bumbleymummy - it’s literally to try and increase vaccination rate as it’s does limit ‘fun’ stuff like socialising on uni campus, skiing, travel, eating out etc. so I guess they hope another 5-10% will just have it now so they can do that[/quote]
Oh I realise that - I meant as far as reducing cases go. Do they really expect it to do much if it’s only stopping unvaccinated people (who they’re trying to blame for the high case numbers) from doing a few things?