With infections rising again despite nearly two years of restrictions, the health crisis is increasingly turning against the citizen – the immunization against immunization.
Desperate to shield overburdened health systems, governments are imposing regulations that limit non-vaccination options in the hope that doing so will increase vaccination rates.
Austria went a step further on Friday, making vaccinations mandatory from 1 February.
“For a long time, perhaps for a very long time, I and others thought that it should be possible to convince people in Austria, to persuade them to voluntarily get vaccinated,” said Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schalenberg.
He called the move “the only way out of this vicious cycle of viral waves and lockdown discussions for good”.
While Austria has so far stood alone in making vaccination mandatory in the EU, more and more governments are closing in.
From Monday, Slovakia is banning people who have not been vaccinated from all non-essential shops and shopping malls. They will not be allowed to attend any public events or gatherings and will need to be tested twice a week to go to work.
Prime Minister Eduard Hager warned, “A Merry Christmas does not mean a Christmas without COVID-19. For that to happen, Slovakia will need an entirely different vaccination rate.”
He called the measures a “lockdown for the unvaccinated”.
Slovakia, where just 45.3% of the 5.5 million population has been fully vaccinated, reported a record 8,342 new virus cases on Tuesday.
It is not only countries in Central and Eastern Europe that are suffering from renewed vigor. The wealthy nations of the West are also being hit hard and once again their population is being banned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday: “It is, in fact, time to act.” With a vaccination rate of 67.5%, his country is now considering compulsory vaccination for many health professionals.
Greece is also targeting non-vaccinated people. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a battery of new restrictions late Thursday, keeping him out of places including bars, restaurants, cinemas, theatres, museums and gyms, even if he has tested negative.
“This is an urgent act of protection and, of course, an indirect urge to vaccinate,” Mitsotakis said.
The sanctions anger Irish EU legislator Claire Daly, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties and Justice. He argues that nations are crushing individual rights.
“In full numbers, member states are pushing people out of their ability to go to work,” Daly said, calling Austria’s restrictions on the unconvincing, which on Friday its plans to impose a complete lockdown “a catastrophic scenario”. was before the verdict.
Even in Ireland, where 75.9% of the population is fully vaccinated, she feels a backlash against the holdout.
“There’s almost a sort of whip against hate speech,” she said.
There is a history of compulsory vaccines in many countries of the world for diseases such as smallpox and polio. Yet with a global COVID-19 death toll exceeding 5 million, despite overwhelming medical evidence that vaccines highly protect against death or serious illness from COVID-19 and slow the spread of the pandemic, populations resist vaccination. Some parts of it are very strong.
Some 10,000 people, chanting “freedom, freedom”, gathered in Prague this week to protest against restrictions imposed by the Czech government without vaccinations.
“No individual liberty is absolute,” said Professor Paul de Gruewe of the London School of Economics. For liberal thinking, he wrote, “the freedom not to be vaccinated needs to be limited in order to guarantee the enjoyment of the freedoms of others.” Tank Liberal.
This theory is now driving friends away from each other and dividing families across European countries.
Birgit Schönemakers, a general practitioner and professor at the University of Leuven, sees it on an almost daily basis.
“It has turned into a fight between the people,” she said.
She sees political conflicts as people deliberately spreading conspiracy theories, but also intensely spreading human stories. One of her patients has been locked out of her parents’ house because she is afraid of being vaccinated.
Shoemakers said that while officials had long held onto the idea of mandatory vaccinations, the highly contagious Delta variant is changing minds.
“It’s incredibly difficult to make a U-turn on this,” she said.
Spiking infections and measures to contain them are beginning a second straight severe holiday season in Europe.
Leuven has already canceled its Christmas market, while a 60-foot Christmas tree was placed in the center of the city’s spectacular Grand Place on Thursday in nearby Brussels, but the Belgian capital’s festive market could go ahead or No, the decision on this will depend on the development. Virus surge.
Paul Virendiels, who donated the tree, hopes to return like a traditional Christmas.
“We are glad to see that they are trying to plant trees, decorate them. It’s a start,” he said. “After almost two difficult years, I think it’s a good thing that some things, more normal in life, are happening again.”
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed.
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