Within the Austrian Lockdown - Onlerd (2024)

Freddie Sayers in the streets of Vienna

Since Monday, not -vaccinated Austria people are not allowed to leave their homes, except to work, to buy important supplies or follow training: it is the world's first "lockdown for the non -vaccinated".shortage of surplus capacity in Austrian hospitals."It's not a recommendation but an order",advertisedMinister of the Interior Karl Nehammer at a press conference."Every citizen must know that they are being checked by the police."

It is essentially a waste of the regime for vaccine passes that already exist in many countries throughout Europe, where people are already excluded from restaurants, museums and theaters.line.

Mia, born in Brazil, has already had Covid, and in the Austrian "2G" system, proof of recovery gives you the same status as if you had been vaccinated for a period of six months.Because and around.Chris is stuck at home.Mental State.He comes there.

Back in the old town, together with the smart stores of Kärntner Straße, it is a very second world.

"I think it will be much too late," says a woman."They are crazy. All the problems we have are due to the people who believe depends on idiots, they cannot be helped and that is the end of society!"

Her vision is typical - there is little sympathy and a lot of frustration here.Shake his head.A man simply describes the latest lockdown as "nonsense".

What is striking is that a few believe that the policy will actually work.Highest case rates in Europe.A tongue -acted "push": "My goal is very clear: to get the non -vaccinated person to be vaccinated, not to lock the non -vaccinated person," hetoldOrf -radiostation.

However, at the practical level, the logic of the new rules does not move much control: non -vaccinated employees are allowed to travel to and from work, and they work disproportionately in the hospitality sector.Restaurants and bars to serve, but not to consume.The vaccinated person, which leads to the strange situation in which the non-vaccinated "safer" is than customers.

It feels like a bit of a stand-off.Vaccine problem has become a show, a test of principles.Vaccin people said: "We are ready to defend our freedoms," the government's basic message was: "Okay, let's what price you are ready to pay for it."

The liberal silence is a strange feature of this dramatic new measure.

Somersaults of Logic have been carried out to claim that the policy is more liberal than the alternatives.Hope to avoid another lockdown, so it seems like a small intervention.To understand the motivations for this despised minority, the anti-waxxes.

To interrogate this apparent contradiction, I visit Professor Manfred Nowak, one of Europe's prominent human rights lawyers, at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.Special rapporteur for the UN for torture, the current secretary -general of the European Campus for Human Rights, activist against Guantanamo Bay, the independent expert in the field of children who have robbed the list of freedom.

It wasn't him.He believes that the policy is not going far enough.Freedom, "he tells me.

He wants to make vaccination compulsory with rejection comparable to a traffic violation, which results in a fine instead of a criminal list.Or civil liberties.Do you not even have a turn of fear about the shift in democratic standards, or whether such a discriminatory policy can be used in different environment, I ask?"No, not really," he says with admirable light.

The last part of this Lockdown mix is ​​natural policy."Corona fascism".

After transforming vaccine hesitation into a "right -wing" political campaign, Kickl has succeeded in not agree with the disagreement of the minority and it is not one that many people like.As misled, group and worthy protection and respect, they are considered an extreme political enemy to be defeated.

It would be difficult to think of someone who is less threatening or extreme than Mia and Chris.Alternative, determined;, To encounter a caste of unspoilt, separate mainstream, everything for a marginal profit against a virus that quickly becomes endemic, a serious wrong calculation can be with effects that will be felt in the coming years.