In an effort to curb the Covid 19 pandemic from spreading, the Austrian government announced that from Monday, unvaccinated people will be placed under a lockdown.
Complete Lockdown On People Above 12 Years
In a cabinet meeting conducted on Sunday, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said that they took the decision to place unvaccinated people under a lockdown with a heavy hart. He said that people above the age of 12 years old will have to stay at home. And can only come out for basic activities like working, shopping or exercising. However, for the people under the age of 12 have no such restrictions.
The lockdown is currently limited to 10 days and will affect around 2 million people across the country. Austria has a total population of 8.9 million people. The police have also been instructed to check people outside to ensure that they have been vaccinated against the virus.
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Schallenberg said that they have to do everything to raise the “embarrassingly low vaccination rate”. He said that with the current vaccination rate in Austria, they may never get out of the “vicious circle”.
Currently, around 65 percent of the citizens have been fully vaccinated. And it is the lowest vaccination rate amongst the Western European countries. Austria record 11552 fresh cases of Covid 19 on Sunday. Previous day, the country recorded a total of 13152 cases of Covid 19.
With the new cases, the country’s overall infection tally has increased to 959,652 and the death tally currently stands at 11706.
Austria Shortens Covid Vaccination Certification Validity
This comes after the Austrian government recently announced that they would be shortening the validity of the Covid 19 certificates. In the announcement, from the first Monday of the next month, December 6, vaccination certificates will be valid only for nine months.
Previously, the vaccination certificates were valid for 12 months.
