Enlarge image
Alexander Schallenberg agrees unvaccinated people to massive exit restrictions
Photo:
Michael Gruber / dpa
If the corona situation worsens dramatically, unvaccinated people in Austria face a lockdown.
This step comes with a particularly high utilization of the intensive care beds, as Austria's Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg explained on Friday evening after a crisis meeting with the Prime Minister.
"We are about to stumble into a pandemic of unprotected unvaccinated people," said the head of government.
Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein said that those who have neither been vaccinated nor recovered have to be prepared for massive exit restrictions at the last stage of the new step-by-step plan.
Then, if necessary, leaving the apartment is only possible for valid reasons.
Schallenberg ruled out a lockdown for those who had been vaccinated or recovered.
He hoped that these plans would send a strong signal.
Austria's ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had already declared the pandemic for vaccinated people to be over in September.
The incidence in Austria is just under 230
Despite the recent significant increase in the number of new infections, the situation in Austria's intensive care units is still largely stable.
The seven-day incidence is just under 230. In Germany it is currently around 95.
In Germany, the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder had already warned of a "pandemic of the unvaccinated" in August.
"If you don't get vaccinated, you endanger yourself and others," Söder had said.
According to official figures from the Robert Koch Institute, 66.1 percent of people in Germany are fully vaccinated;
in Austria the vaccination quota is 62.1 percent.
hba / dpa