Austria has announced a lockdown for the population, including those vaccinated.
“We have to face reality,” Austrian Chancellor Alexander Salenberg told a news conference in Tyrol, following talks with all Austrian regional governors.
Austria is the first country in Western Europe to re-impose a comprehensive, national lockdown, which includes vaccinated citizens, to address the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic and will make vaccination mandatory for the entire population from February 1.
The total lockdown will initially be valid for 10 days and will last for a maximum of 20 days.
“Increasing the vaccination rate is the only way out of the vicious circle,” said Alexander Salenberg, noting that the vaccine is the “exit ticket” from the pandemic.
In Europe, the pandemic is re-igniting and many countries, such as Sweden, Germany and Greece, have announced tightening restrictions in recent days.
As of last Monday in Austria, the two million unvaccinated people were no longer allowed to leave their homes except for shopping, sports or medical care.
From now on, the lockdown measure applies to the total population of 8.9 million inhabitants, where the vaccination rate is 66%, according to AFP (63.9%, according to the Politico count), despite the introduction of the vaccination certificate from the spring.
The restrictive measures implemented a few days ago caused an increase in the number of appointments for vaccination measures.
However, the number of cases continues to rise and is at levels unprecedented since the outbreak of the epidemic: yesterday Austria recorded 15,000 cases of the virus in the last 24 hours.
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