Austria Suspends Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccine Law
Austria’s government announced Wednesday that it is delaying a law that makes Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for all adults, just a month after the regulation went into force in an EU first.
The nine-million-strong Alpine nation was one of the few in the world to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for all adults.
The law went into effect in February and said that non-compliance will result in fines of up to 3,600 euros ($3,940) starting in mid-March.
But Minister Karoline Edtstadler said the law’s “encroachment of fundamental rights” could no longer be justified by the danger posed by the pandemic.
“After consultations with the health minister, we have decided that we will of course follow what the (expert) commission has said,” Edtstadler told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.
“We see no need to actually implement this compulsory vaccination due to the (Omicron) variant that we are predominantly experiencing here.”
The highly contagious variety is thought to be less severe than previous strains of the virus, and Austrian hospitals have so far been able to handle an influx of cases.
Calls for a reconsideration of the law have become louder in recent weeks, notably after Austria removed practically all coronavirus prohibitions.
Since the start of the epidemic in 2020, Austria has registered about three million coronavirus cases and over 15,000 deaths as of Tuesday.
