BERLIN: Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said Friday that the country will go into a national lockdown to contain a fourth wave of coronavirus cases.
Schallenberg said the lockdown will start Monday and initially last for 10 days. Most stores will close, and cultural events will be canceled.
He initially said said all students would have to go back into home schooling. Wolfgang Mueckstein, the country’s health minister, later said that kindergartens and schools would remain open for those who needed to go there but all parents were asked to keep their children at home if possible.
Starting on Feb. 1, the country will also make vaccinations mandatory, public broadcaster ORF reported.
“We do not want a fifth wave,” Schallenberg said, according to ORF. “Not do we want a sixth or seventh wave.”
Austria had initially introduced a national lockdown only for the unvaccinated that started Monday, but as virus cases continued to skyrocket the government said it had no choice but to extend it to everyone.
“This is very painful,” Schallenberg said.
The national lockdown will initially last for 10 days, then the effects will be assessed and if virus cases have not gone down sufficiently, it can be extended to a maximum of 20 days.
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. It really is high time for a full stop,” Walter Hasibeder, the president of the Society for Anesthesiology, 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 percent of the population are fully vaccinated.
Despite all the persuasion and campaigns, too few people have decided to get vaccinated, Schallenberg said, leaving the country no other choice but to introduce mandatory vaccinations in February.
The chancellor said the details would be finalized 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,” Schallenberg said. “For a long time, perhaps too long.”
Austria to enter lockdown, bring in mandatory vaccinations
https://arab.news/8vfpg
Austria to enter lockdown, bring in mandatory vaccinations
- Schallenberg said the lockdown will start Monday and initially last for 10 days
- Austria’s intensive care doctors welcomed the government’s decision
Pull him off TV: Steve Bannon shuts down Sen. Lindsey Graham
- Trump’s former chief strategist called for the senator to be registered as a foreign agent
DUBAI: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon called on Tuesday for US Senator Lindsey Graham to be registered as a foreign agent of the Israeli government, escalating a growing conservative backlash against the senator’s vocal support for Israel.
Speaking on his podcast “War Room,” Bannon said Graham should be “pulled off of television,” adding: "This is dangerous… because you have guys like Lindsey Graham and dozens more that are doing the wrong thing.”
In a Fox News interview on Monday, Graham said: “To all the antisemites, to all the isolationists… I’m not with you, I’m with Israel, I will be with Israel to our dying day.”
Graham also urged Gulf Arab states to join military action against Iran. “What I want you to do in the Middle East, to our friends in Saudi Arabia and other places, [is] step forward and say, ‘this is my fight too, I join America, I’m publicly involved in bringing this regime down,’” he said.
In a post on X, Graham questioned the value of a US defense agreement with Saudi Arabia following the evacuation of the American embassy in Riyadh, writing: “Why should America do a defense agreement with a country like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that is unwilling to join a fight of mutual interest?”
Faisal Abbas, editor-in-chief of Arab News, responded to Graham’s comments in a Sky News interview, saying: “He flip flops so much, it’s actually entertaining.”
“On one hand, he says he will never set foot in Saudi Arabia. The next day, he’s here signing multimillion-dollar deals.”
“I don’t think anyone here takes him seriously,” Abbas added.
He warned Graham to be careful what he wished for: “Do you really want Saudi Arabia involved in this war putting our oil facilities at risk or do you want us stabilizing the energy markets?”
Graham pressed further, warning that inaction would carry a price. “Hopefully Gulf Cooperation Council countries will get more involved as this fight is in their backyard. If you are not willing to use your military now, when are you willing to use it?”
“Hopefully this changes soon. If not, consequences will follow.”
Graham's remarks drew sharp criticism from Bannon and others including podcast host Megyn Kelly.
She questioned on X whether Graham was overstepping his authority as a senator, writing: “When did Lindsay Graham become our president?”
Kelly also said Graham had threatened Lebanon, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, the wider Arab region, and Spain within a 24-hour period.
The problem with Graham “isn’t (just) that he’s a homicidal maniac, it’s that Trump likes and is listening to him,” she said in another post.
