Vaccinations to made a legal requirement in Austria from Feb 2022

[littlelordfuckleroy]

Days after Austria imposed a lockdown on the unvaccinated, it has announced a full national Covid-19 lockdown starting on Monday.

Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said it would last at least 10 days and there would be a legal requirement to get vaccinated from 1 February 2022.

Jesus. I'm shocked by that. I'm not an antivaxxer but I still very concerned that a country could make any vaccine a legal requirement! I feel it's a step too far.

@littlelordfuckleroy

Can people please stop with this antisemitic bull shit? Go take your oppression Olympics somewhere else. I swear some people want to be oppressed so bad they’re jumping the shark with comparisons.

Where's the antisemitism?

littlelordfuckleroy Can I suggest a nice Star of Alexander

Comparisons with the Holocaust are unhelpful and offensive. The Jewish community have repeatedly asked for people to not use this.

I felt a bit jolted too, these are the other countries that do it

Austria first European country

Countries with compulsory jabs
Indonesia made vaccinations mandatory in February, warning that anyone who refused to be vaccinated could be fined up to 5million rupiah (£260), or denied social assistance or government services.
Micronesia mandated in July that its adult population be inoculated if they want to receive federal payments like pensions, salaries and Covid stimulus. The president received death threats as a result.
Turkmenistan has made vaccination mandatory for all residents aged 18 and over. The order made no mention of punishments.
Tajikistan in July also made it compulsory for all over 18, but the government decree did not mention punishments.

Apologies for any offence caused. I certainly wasn't being antisemitic though, quite the opposite

@AdmiralCain

I'm very worried about what happens if you refuse, will they freeze your assets? Force you to live at home until you run out of food then when you step out snatch you? knock down your door in force? and no I'm not being anti-Semitic, round you up and take you somewhere and impose their dictatorship on your democratic body?

I don't think any of these measures are feasible.

They're going to really struggle to enforce this

@MummyPop00

To be fair the Teutonic types have history of this sort of population ‘management’. Must be in their genes.

Not appropriate to say that

@MarshaBradyo

I felt a bit jolted too, these are the other countries that do it

Austria first European country

Countries with compulsory jabs
Indonesia made vaccinations mandatory in February, warning that anyone who refused to be vaccinated could be fined up to 5million rupiah (£260), or denied social assistance or government services.
Micronesia mandated in July that its adult population be inoculated if they want to receive federal payments like pensions, salaries and Covid stimulus. The president received death threats as a result.
Turkmenistan has made vaccination mandatory for all residents aged 18 and over. The order made no mention of punishments.
Tajikistan in July also made it compulsory for all over 18, but the government decree did not mention punishments.

Yes just read this.

😲😲😲

Also as shocked as I felt Feb is a fair while off

The situation to be dealt with is now so I’m not sure why necessary in Feb

Locking down the unvaccinated worked well then. Oh wait

@MarshaBradyo

Also as shocked as I felt Feb is a fair while off

The situation to be dealt with is now so I’m not sure why necessary in Feb

Perhaps they don't actually have enough vaccines to give people?

@MarshaBradyo

I felt a bit jolted too, these are the other countries that do it

Austria first European country

Countries with compulsory jabs
Indonesia made vaccinations mandatory in February, warning that anyone who refused to be vaccinated could be fined up to 5million rupiah (£260), or denied social assistance or government services.
Micronesia mandated in July that its adult population be inoculated if they want to receive federal payments like pensions, salaries and Covid stimulus. The president received death threats as a result.
Turkmenistan has made vaccination mandatory for all residents aged 18 and over. The order made no mention of punishments.
Tajikistan in July also made it compulsory for all over 18, but the government decree did not mention punishments.

Thanks, .i did not know this. Has it been widely reported?

If there's no penalty attached, is it a law? I gather law and mandate aren't the same thing in some countries.

I think Feb just gives them time for more people to "volunteer".

It is all so utterly depressing. I am pro-vaccination but I vehemently oppose it being mandatory. What a bleak world we live in - not a shred of happiness or joy anywhere at the moment.

Well, if they do manage to vaccinate almost everyone in Austria, it'll be interesting to see how this translates to cases, hospitalisation and if cases do drop, how long will that last and will they rise again after some months or a year or so.

Where did they say about imprisonment? From what I have read, it only says about the possibility of fines.

The chancellor said the details would be finalized in the coming weeks but those who continued to refuse to get vaccinated would have to expect to get fined.

apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-health-europe-restaurants-9627ef468fa8484796d33e8dc656e989

It feels horrific to even have this being considered. But it also feels unhelpful to me not to have some trickier conversations about how to protect the population. The personal freedom argument cannot be where the conversation stops when your choices have such a dramatic impact on others. Medicine is not just a private relationship with your doctor. There are also already lots of political decisions at play e.g. with regards to what medicines and treatment NICE approves given the cost/ benefit analysis. If we spend money on one thing, we can't spend it on another so 'individual' decisions are already made with general regard to society as a whole.

I read on another thread that one of the issues with Gibraltar is actually about how many people visit from elsewhere, so there are large swathes of people in Gibraltar who are not vaccinated - I am just repeating what I think someone else said though so am no expert at all but I don't think it can be used as an argument that vaccination does not prevent lockdowns being considered necessary though I'm very open to be corrected by people who know better.

For me, I don't see it as an issue of fault. We can choose to protect spaces where risk of transmission is lowered as much as possible whilst not blaming people who choose not to be vaccinated. Re: things like obesity, I, and I think many others, would really welcome much more research into the causes and best treatments. Putting it down to an individual choice (and therefore considering the person to be at fault) is not helpful and does not pull out the complicated causes.

I think Feb just gives them time for more people to "volunteer".

Yes could be.

Note of caution - just to point out it's still only a possibility, not been passed into law yet. From the Guardian - “No one wants a lockdown, it is a crude instrument”, said the health minister, Wolfgang Mückstein. “But it is the most effective instrument that we have available”. The Green politician said constitutional lawyers were examining the general vaccine mandate the government wants to come into effect from 1 February 2022.

I don't know how likely it is that they will succeed in doing this.

Does Austria have free health care? Was it Singapore ( that has no NHS system) that said only vaccinated people would receive free medical treatment if they need it for Covid ( but don’t provide free health treatment for other infections anyway).

It makes me decidedly uncomfortable, I have to say. Having a government be able to say you must do X with your body sets such a dangerous precedent.

I'm not an anti-vaxxer and I'm fully vaccinated as that was the choice I made in the belief it was best for my health. To be forced to have a vaccine though.... Now that is not something I'd be happy about.

If a government can force you to have a vaccine, it's a short step from that to forcing abortions for women deemed to have "undesirable" genetic make-up or euthanising elderly or disabled people once they become a "burden" on society. Then all of a sudden we find ourselves in a Nazi-style situation again and we'll all stand around wondering what happened.

It really bloody bothers me, this does.

Re: things like obesity, I, and I think many others, would really welcome much more research into the causes and best treatments. Putting it down to an individual choice (and therefore considering the person to be at fault) is not helpful and does not pull out the complicated causes.

There is SO much research into obesity, including it's mechanisms and best practise in terms of reducing risk. It's one of the top threats to public health and has been for decades @Whatiswrongwithmyknee so funding has been poured into this area

I appreciate the media doesn't often report this well though

Re: things like obesity, I, and I think many others, would really welcome much more research into the causes and best treatments. Putting it down to an individual choice (and therefore considering the person to be at fault) is not helpful and does not pull out the complicated causes

But obesity is an immediate risk to health services right now as it is one of the highest risk groups for poor covid outcomes.

The obese have had a long time to address this so why are the unvaccinated at fault but the obese are not?

Many unvaccinated will not have put themselves at risk through their lifestyle choices so why should they be punished to protect people who have made poor choices?

fines and prison

That’s absolutely disgusting 😱

People have the right to choose what happens to their body

Ah, looked it up - two-tier health system. But does mean they provide everyone though with health access so should not be charging people of choose not to be vaccinated!

If people weren't such idiots declining the perfectly safe vaccine in the first place, they wouldn't be in this situation.

Also bodily autonomy goes out the window if you're posing a threat to yourself and/or others. Collectively, large numbers of people refusing to get vaxxed does pose a massive threat to public health.

Totally agree

@ollyollyoxenfree

Re: things like obesity, I, and I think many others, would really welcome much more research into the causes and best treatments. Putting it down to an individual choice (and therefore considering the person to be at fault) is not helpful and does not pull out the complicated causes.

There is SO much research into obesity, including it's mechanisms and best practise in terms of reducing risk. It's one of the top threats to public health and has been for decades @Whatiswrongwithmyknee so funding has been poured into this area

I appreciate the media doesn't often report this well though

yes, there is lots. But not enough as it's not helping many obese people.

The obese have had a long time to address this so why are the unvaccinated at fault but the obese are not?

It's society who needs to address this, not individual obese people IMO. The evidence that obesity is caused by the individual it affects is not robust.

Many unvaccinated will not have put themselves at risk through their lifestyle choices so why should they be punished to protect people who have made poor choices?

I don't want them to be punished and I don't think many others do either but I guess this depends on how you see punishment. It is also wrong to suggest that the people vulnerable to covid are all so because of their poor choices. I'm not suggesting that the Austrian position is right (that does feel like punishment) or not concerning, just that we need a broader proper conversation about how we can balance the rights and needs of everyone.

German news is reporting that the Austrian constitutional court has indicated this measure would be allowed.

The reason they're bringing it in is that the nudge tactics weren't as successful as they hoped (same in some areas of Germany) and they hope this will help vaccination take up.

I imagine fines coupled with a system of 2G+ measures will become reality. Tbh I think 2G+ will be OK for me - I'm vaccinated - and people who don't want to miss out on thinks will decide accordingly.