Austria reimposes full lockdown for all citizens, including vaccinated

Vaccination will now be mandatory for the population.

Austria is set to re-enter a full lockdown in a bid to quash the surge of Covid-19 currently sweeping throughout Europe. In doing so, Austria becomes the first country in western Europe to reimpose such measures. Furthermore, the country will make its vaccination rollout mandatory for all citizens. According to Reuters, the population will be ordered to receive vaccinations as of 1 February, 2022. The initial lockdown will last for a minimum of 10 days and a maximum of 20, per chancellor Alexander Schallenberg's remarks at a news conference on Friday, 19 November. The Austrian news arrives on a day where the majority of Irish people are asked to work from home where possible in line with new Covid restrictions unveiled earlier this week. Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar noted that "as a nation, we're a little bit crestfallen" about having to introduce fresh restrictions. "We do have among the highest vaccination rates in the world – around 94% of adults are fully vaccinated," he said. "Unfortunately, the 5% that are not are causing a lot of the trouble. About 5% are not fully vaccinated but about 50% of people in hospital in ICU are not fully vaccinated, so even that 5% can create a lot of difficulty."