Austria imposes national lockdown and mandatory vaccinations as Covid cases soar

Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg: 'We have not succeeded in convincing enough people to get vaccinated'

People walk over a nearly deserted Christmas market in Vienna, Austria. File Picture: AP Photo/Lisa Leutner

Austrian chancellor Alexander Schallenberg has said the country will go into a national lockdown to contain a fourth wave of coronavirus cases.

Mr Schallenberg said the lockdown will start on Monday and initially last for 10 days.

Students will have to go back into home schooling, restaurants will close and cultural events will be cancelled.

Starting on February 1, the country will also make vaccinations mandatory, public broadcaster ORF reported.

“We do not want a fifth wave,” Mr Schallenberg said, according to ORF.

Last weekend, the Austrian government has imposed a nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus in the country.

The move means that unvaccinated individuals older than 12 are banned from leaving their homes since midnight on Sunday, except for basic activities such as working, food shopping, going for a walk — or getting jabbed.

Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg. File Picture: Lisa Leutner/AP

Authorities are concerned about rising deaths and that hospitals will not be able to handle the growing influx of Covid patients.

Chancellor Schallenberg told reporters in Vienna on Sunday: “It’s our job as the government of Austria to protect the people.

The lockdown for the unvaccinated began on Monday.

"We have not succeeded in convincing enough people to get vaccinated," Mr Schallenberg told a news conference.

"It hurts that such measures still have to be taken."

Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in western Europe, with only around 65% of the total population fully vaccinated.

The issue has also deepened a rift between Schallenberg's conservatives and their coalition partner, the left-wing Greens. 

Mr Schallenberg said only days ago that he did not want to impose extra restrictions on the unvaccinated, even as health minister Wolfgang Mueckstein called for a nighttime curfew.

Austria’s intensive care doctors welcomed the government’s decision.

“The record infection figures that we have now experienced day after day will only be reflected in normal and intensive care units with a time lag.

Austria will go into lockdown on Monday which will initially last for 10 days. Picture: Lisa Leutner/AP

“It really is high time for a full stop,” Walter Hasibeder, the president of the Society for Anaesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Medicine told Austrian news agency APA.

“Given the current infection developments, we believe there are no alternatives to even greater contact restriction than recently, so any measures that help curb the momentum are welcome,” he added.

For the past seven days, the country has reported more than 10,000 new infection cases daily.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed with many new Covid-19 patients, and deaths have been rising again, too.

So far, 11,525 people have died of the virus in Austria.

Austria, a country of 8.9 million, has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe, only 65.7% of the population are fully vaccinated.

Despite all the persuasion and campaigns, too few people have decided to get vaccinated, Mr Schallenberg said, leaving the country no other choice but to introduce mandatory vaccinations in February.

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

“For a long time, the consensus in this country was that we didn’t want mandatory vaccination,” Mr Schallenberg said.

“For a long time, perhaps too long.”