A demonstrator holds a placard reading 'No to compulsory vaccination' during an anti-vaccination protest at the Ballhausplatz in Vienna, Austria, on November 14, 2021. Photo: GEORG HOCHMUTH/APA/AFP via Getty Images
Austria has ordered all citizens not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 into lockdown. From this week, the country’s population of roughly 2 million unvaccinated adults must stay at home unless they are buying food or medicines, going to work, or exercising. Individuals who have had COVID are exempt from the order, but a universal 10PM curfew has been introduced for the entire country.The government hopes that the new orders will help combat rising infection rates in a country where only 68 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. “The COVID situation in Austria is serious,” Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said at a press conference on Sunday. “We have to raise the vaccination quota, it's shameful. Help us break this fourth wave. The only way is vaccination.”In response to the new measures, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of major cities across Austria on the weekend in protest.
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The order is currently scheduled to last ten days but the government has promised further lockdowns should infection rates continue to rise.“We all have one goal: to protect the intensive care units,” Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein said at the press conference. "If the momentum continues, further measures will be necessary.”