Austria’s new Covid “nightmare” political measures

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The previous three weeks have been a nightmare for Austrians, both vaccinated and unvaccinated. Despite leaders’ assurances that the pandemic was gone this summer, this little country in the heart of Europe has become the first Western state to test a universal vaccine mandate.

Those who have chosen not to take the vaccination for a variety of reasons have described recent occurrences as pure psychological warfare. The administration and its experts began to submit their suggestions for enforcing the mandate almost immediately after it was announced. Karoline Edtstadler, Minister of Constitutional Affairs, said that everyone who refuses the vaccination will be penalized up to 14,400 Euros per year, enough to bankrupt an ordinary household.

The consequence was a surge of protests in Vienna, with about 100,000 people taking to the streets in recent weeks, and these rallies appear to have had some impact. The most recent draft law only proposes fines of 600 Euros four times a year for each unvaccinated person—still hefty enough to affect many middle-class households.

All of this is set against the backdrop of the country’s worst political crisis in decades. After enormous protests over his authoritarian pandemic policies and a number of significant claims of corruption, former chancellor Sebastian Kurz was forced to quit two months ago. The release of WhatsApp messages between Kurz and his closest advisers, in which they discussed the appointment of friends to high positions in state-owned companies, the manipulation of opinion poll results, and ways to put psychological pressure on a Catholic Bishops’ Conference representative who had criticized the government, precipitated his downfall. They described Austrians as “riffraff” and “animals” in these communications.

Source: newsweek.com 

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