Undercover Police are being deployed in Austria to assist in the intensification of COVID restrictions in the country.
Austrian police are to considerably ramp up checks regarding COVID restrictions. The crackdown will even go as far as deploying plainclothes police to the streets to catch out those who might attempt to go about their daily business while avoiding officers, top Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.
While authorities in the country have already reportedly done 1.6 million checks since the start of the nation’s “Corona Apartheid‘ lockdown of unvaccinated individuals, Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner has said they will be ramped up even further.
“The controls will… continue to be intensified, above all out of fairness towards those who support the necessary restrictions in solidarity,” the interior minister said, it was reported Monday.
“It’s about taking action against those who do not adhere to the rules. And taking action with fairness towards those who support the measures,” Die Presse reports Karner as also saying.
Kronen Zeitung cites the ramping up of checks to a reduction in other types of crime in Austria, partly as a result of COVID measures such as the 10pm curfew on venues such as restaurants and bars.
The increased number of checks will reportedly focus on the nation’s gastronomy sector, including the likes of bars and restaurants, as well as on retail and tourist hotspots to make sure all rules are being followed, according to the minister.
Austria’s increase in police checks is to coincide with the introduction of even more measures aimed at further curbing the spread of the Chinese Coronavirus from Tuesday.
One such measure includes the checking of every person entering most shops for proof of vaccination or recovery in order to prevent those without COVID papers from accessing retail services.
There will also be spot checks on the streets as before, except performed by undercover police officers, with “special patrols… to monitor compliance with the Corona measures”, KZ reported.
The nation’s government is also still looking to implement a regime of mandatory vaccination in the country.
Originally, the ruling administration in Austria hoped to have the mandate implemented by February, with all those remaining unvaccinated after that point facing hefty fines and even possible imprisonment.
However, due to apparent communication failures on the part of government officials, many of the restrictions are not legally possible until after April 1st, with some remaining legally impossible even after that date.
Despite the mishap, the nation has continued its promised indefinite lockdown of the unvaccinated, despite many within the country protesting the measures.
Over 40,000 attended a demonstration in Vienna on Saturday to protest the COVID measures currently in place in the country, with a further demonstration taking place in Innsbruck on Sunday.
This latter protest went ahead as planned despite Karner making disapproving remarks regarding the attendance of members of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, or Freedom Party of Austria.