Vaccination against the Chinese coronavirus has become compulsory for all adults in Austria as of Saturday.
Just over two months after the draconian measure was first announced, Austria has made getting vaccinated against the Chinese coronavirus mandatory for all those over the age of 18 in the country.
The new forced jab rules come into force from Saturday, but penalties for those who do not abide by the mandate will not come into effect until mid-March.
According to a report by Kronen Zeitung, Austria’s Federal President, Alexander Van der Bellen, as well as Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer, successfully signed the bill into law on Friday morning.
As a result, all those over the age of 18 in Austria will soon be required to have had the jab or face the possibility of fines, though an exception has been put in place for pregnant women, as well as for those who have been deemed unfit to take a jab due to medical reasons.
Once penalties do come into effect, however, those without an exemption who remain unjabbed will run the risk of being handed down penalties of up to €3,600.
Herbert Kickl, who serves as leader of the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs — or Freedom Party of Austria — denounced the law, which he claimed would put Austria “on a par with authoritarian states”.
“By signing the vaccination law, Van der Bellen ushered in an inglorious era for the rule of law and the fundamental rights and freedoms of Austrians,” the publication reports Kickl as saying.
Meanwhile, a post made by the party on social media declared that it will aim to support the nation’s unvaccinated against any mandate penalties.
“The FPÖ supports citizens against compulsory vaccination,” the post on Friday read. “We will exhaust all legal options and inform citizens how they can defend themselves against impending penalties.”
While originally scheduled to come into force on February 1, the regime of forced vaccination ended up being delayed over administrative issues.
It follows a previous accusation from one left-wing member of the opposition that the government’s rollout of the mandate has been a “botch”, with others suggesting that the nation would be better off abandoning the plan entirely.
“In the Federal Council I will refuse to give my consent to a handicraft vaccination botch,” said one sitting member of Austria’s federal parliament, David Egger.
The member of Austria’s Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs — or Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) — turned against the forced vax plans shortly after news emerged that a previous administrative error made by Austrian authorities had put the project at risk.
“Can compulsory vaccination be implemented without breaking the administrative system? When can a possible compulsory vaccination actually be implemented technically? ” the parliamentarian asked.
Fellow SPÖ party member and head of the Austrian federal state of Burgenland, Hans Peter Doskozil, also questioned the wisdom of implementing forced vaccination.
“What if the Constitutional Court said in one year that it was unconstitutional? That would be a disaster,” the governor said regarding the then-proposed measure. “I would rather have an indirect vaccination requirement, in which PCR tests for unvaccinated people are subject to a fee.”
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