Unvaccinated people in two hard-hit regions in Austria will be forced into lockdown next week as the government looks at doing the same nationwide due to rising COVID-19 cases.
From Monday, unvaccinated people in the regions of Upper Austria and Salzburg will only be allowed to leave their homes for specific reasons, such as going to the supermarket or for a doctor’s appointment.
Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said he and regional leaders will meet again on Sunday when they plan to approve implementing the same measures across the country.
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Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein also announced people working in the healthcare sector will be required to have a COVID vaccine to work but did not say when that would begin.
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About 65% of Austria‘s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, national statistics show.
However, according to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the country has the lowest vaccination rate of any western European country, apart from Liechtenstein – that has a population of around 40,000.
Many Austrians are sceptical about vaccinations, a view encouraged by the far-right Freedom Party, the third-biggest in parliament.
Under an incremental government plan agreed in September, once 30% of intensive-care beds are occupied by coronavirus patients, people not vaccinated against the virus will be placed under lockdown rules, with restrictions on their daily freedoms.
The current level is 20% and it is rising fast.
On Thursday, official figures showed 760.6 reported new cases per 100,000 residents over the previous seven days – a rate three times that of neighbouring Germany, where record numbers are also causing alarm.
Mr Schallenberg told a news conference announcing the lockdowns that Austria’s vaccination rate is “shamefully low”.
“A lockdown for the unvaccinated means one cannot leave one’s home unless one is going to work, shopping (for essentials), stretching one’s legs – namely exactly what we all had to suffer through in 2020,” Mr Schallenberg said, referring to three national lockdowns last year.
Austria has taken a series of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 and encourage more people to get vaccinated in recent weeks.
On Monday, new rules took effect barring unvaccinated people who haven’t recovered from an infection from restaurants, hotels, hairdressing salons and large public events.
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The surge in cases in Austria comes at a time when Eastern European states, with the continent’s lowest vaccination rates, are experiencing some of the world’s highest daily death tolls per capita.