A poll has found that the majority of Germans are in favour of making vaccination against the Chinese coronavirus compulsory.
A YouGov poll found that nearly seven in ten German adults are in favour of legally forcing all individuals within the country to take the vaccine.
In total, 69 per cent are in favour of “general compulsory vaccination” according to the poll. Of those, 19 per cent said that they would tend to support implementing the measure, while 50 per cent responded that they would “fully” support the implementation of mandatory vaccination against Covid-19.
By contrast, only 23 per cent of respondents stated that they were either partially or fully against implementing mandatory vaccination.
The poll comes hot on the heels of the announcement that the country’s German-speaking neighbour Austria will be making vaccination against the coronavirus compulsory from February next year.
Post-implementation, those who refuse to get vaccinated within Austria face fines, as well as possible imprisonment.
The announcement quickly followed an attempt to curb Covid cases by locking down only the unvaccinated within the country, a measure which was slammed as “Corona Apartheid” by Freedom Party of Austria leader and former minister for the interior, Herbert Kickl.
The lockdown was soon expanded to the entirety of the population, and is scheduled to last for 20 days for those who are vaccinated, and, according to the Austrian government, will go on in perpetuity for those who are not.
Several senior German officials have called for similar compulsory vaccination measures to be implemented within the country.
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder said that Germany “will not be able to avoid compulsory vaccination” and that, without the mandate, Germany will find itself in “an endless loop with this corona crap”.
Meanwhile, Paula Piechotta, a member of the German Green Party, which will soon be entering government, claimed that mandatory vaccination would be less disruptive than another potential lockdown.
“If we can’t achieve sufficient vaccination rates on a non-mandatory basis, we have to talk about vaccine mandates, especially for people who work in vulnerable settings like nursing homes and hospitals,” Piechotta said.
Social Democrat leader Olaf Scholz, who will soon replace the outgoing Angela Merkel as German chancellor, stated that the authoritarian measure should be considered.
“I think it’s right that we have started a discussion about whether this should be done,” Scholz stated regarding forced vaccination.
The future chancellor has more recently announced that a more limited form of compulsory vaccination was on the cards for certain sectors.
According to Politico, Scholz is looking at making vaccination against the Wuhan virus mandatory for health staff, as well as other essential workers.
“We still haven’t defeated corona. Day after day we are racing to new records,” Scholz said. “Vaccination is the way out of this pandemic.”