Austria returned to a partial lockdown in the most dramatic Covid-19 restrictions seen in Western Europe for months after a weekend of violence against virus measures rocked several cities on the continent. The Alpine nation is also imposing a sweeping vaccine mandate from February 1, one of few places in the world to announce such a step so far.
Shops, restaurants and festive markets were shuttered on Monday, while its 8.9 million people are not allowed to leave home with few exceptions such as going to work, shopping for essentials and exercising as virus cases are surging.
Schools and kindergartens remain open, though parents have been asked to keep children at home when possible despite there being no distance learning offered during the three-week lockdown.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday slammed the “violence under the guise of protest”, saying he defends the right to demonstrate peacefully, but “will never accept that idiots use pure violence”.
And in Denmark this weekend, around 1,000 demonstrators protested government plans to reinstate a Covid pass for civil servants.
“People want to live,” said one of the organisers of the Dutch protests, Joost Eras. “That’s why we’re here. A crowd of 40,000 marched through Vienna on Saturday decrying “dictatorship”, while some 6,000 people protested in the city of Linz on Sunday.
Vienna’s rally was organised by a far-right political party, and some protesters wore a yellow star reading “not vaccinated”, mimicking the Star of David Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust.
Roads were blocked Sunday after protesters defying a curfew looted and torched shops and pharmacies overnight, when police made 38 arrests and two members of the security forces were injured.
The violence come as Covid infections spiral in Europe. Germany’s Health Minister Jens Spahn issued a fresh call on Monday for citizens to get vaccinated.
“Probably by the end of this winter, as is sometimes cynically said, pretty much everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, cured or dead,” Spahn said, blaming “the very contagious Delta variant”.
Austria’s decision flies in the face of earlier promises that tough virus restrictions would be a thing of the past.
When that proved ineffective at squelching new infections, he announced a nationwide lockdown, with an evaluation after 10 days. Political analyst Thomas Hofer blamed Schallenberg for maintaining “the fiction” of a successfully contained pandemic for too long.
Source: eNCA
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