Austria Expected to Impose Lockdown Only On the Unvaccinated

"Austria is expected to impose lockdown restrictions on millions of unvaccinated people in the coming days," reports CNBC:Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg told a press conference Friday that his government wanted to give the "green light" to such measures by Sunday, Austria Press Agency reported. Lawmakers will meet over the weekend to discuss the move, according to the news agency. The chancellor rejected the notion of a nationwide lockdown being applied to all of Austria's citizens, telling reporters on Friday that the two-thirds of the population who had accepted the immunization would not be forced to show "solidarity" with the unvaccinated. However, he did caution that there may be some tightening of other restrictions. Schallenberg said last month that if Covid-19 cases continued to rise, unvaccinated people would face new lockdown restrictions in line with the government's incremental plan. That strategy would place unvaccinated people under lockdown once coronavirus patients occupy 30% of ICU beds in hospitals. Covid patients currently take up 20% of ICU beds in Austria, according to Reuters, and that level is rising fast. On Thursday Schallenberg had said that he didn't see "why two-thirds should lose their freedom because one-third is dithering." Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that starting Monday the country of Latvia will ban unvaccinated lawmakers from attending in-person and remote parliament meetings. "Their wages also will be suspended if they are not able to work at the parliament."

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