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Compulsory vaccination for people over 60: a man in Athens is waiting for his vaccination
Photo: ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU / EPA-EFE
The Bundestag and Bundesrat have decided that hospital and nursing staff should be vaccinated.
By mid-March 2022, employees in facilities with vulnerable people must provide evidence that they have been vaccinated or have recovered.
A general compulsory vaccination in Germany is still being discussed.
How is the situation in other countries?
An overview.
General compulsory vaccination
Austria is so far the only country in the EU that has introduced a general compulsory vaccination for people aged 14 and over.
The government is reacting to the low vaccination rate in the country.
"The compulsory vaccination should be a way back to freedom," said Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP).
The bill stipulates that it will be really expensive for vaccine refusers from February 2022.
Fines of up to 3600 euros are then possible.
Those affected can "vaccinate" themselves out of the sentence, said constitution minister Karoline Edtstadler.
That then counts as "active repentance," according to the ÖVP politician.
Every three months, the population register is to be compared with the vaccination register and, if necessary, a procedure initiated.
The Austrian law is initially planned for two years.
A vaccination quota, at which the compulsory vaccination is abolished again, has not been set.
Children under 14 years of age, pregnant women, those who have recovered up to 180 days after the illness and people with a medical certificate are exempt from the obligation to vaccinate.
There is also a general compulsory vaccination for people aged 18 and over in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the island state of Micronesia and Indonesia.
In Indonesia, fines of up to the equivalent of 300 euros have been possible since February 2021.
Vaccination refusers can also be excluded from social welfare or government services.
Compulsory vaccination for healthcare workers
Significantly more countries have already made vaccination compulsory for certain professions.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, announced a quasi-compulsory vaccination for relatives in the nursing profession.
In addition to nurses and carers for the elderly, this also included fire fighters.
The announcement read: Anyone who has not been vaccinated by mid-September will no longer receive a salary.
For Macron it was a high political risk, as the anti-vaccination demonstrations in many French cities in the summer were still very popular.
In the Élysée there was fear, among other things, of a new edition of the yellow vests, as both the locations of the demonstrations and, in some cases, their participant structure coincided with the yellow vests movement.
In the end, however, many employees then had themselves vaccinated.
Poland, Lebanon, New Zealand, Greece, Finland, Great Britain and other countries have also announced compulsory vaccination for people in the health sector.
In some countries employees in other areas are also required to be vaccinated.
In the Australian state of Western Australia, for example, this applies to workers who work in mining or in oil and gas exploration.
Compulsory vaccination for certain age groups
In addition to compulsory vaccination for health care workers, the Czech Republic and Greece have also made vaccination compulsory for people aged 60 and over.
This age group is considered to be particularly at risk of falling seriously ill or even dying from the coronavirus.
In Greece this means that all unvaccinated citizens of this age group must either show an appointment for vaccination in mid-January or have received the first vaccination dose.
Those who do not get vaccinated have to pay a fine of 100 euros per month.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced at the end of November.
Immediately after the announcement, many Greeks made appointments for vaccinations.
The trend of the extremely few vaccinations per day could be turned around.
The compulsory vaccination for people over the age of 60 met with criticism from the opposition.
Instead, she suggested luring people to have a vaccination with money.
Ultimately, however, the protest has so far been limited.
According to the latest data from the national health authority, there have been 5376 new cases and 130 deaths in Greece in the past 24 hours.
That's the second highest number of deaths since the pandemic began.
700 patients are in the intensive care unit.
The average age is 64 years, and almost 82 percent are not vaccinated.
No compulsory vaccination
Some countries did not even have to discuss compulsory vaccination - because the majority of people have already been vaccinated.
In Portugal and Spain there are now hardly any people left to be vaccinated.
Both countries are far ahead in an international comparison of vaccination rates.
Thanks to these vaccination quotas, there was no debate about compulsory vaccination or 3G rules.
Behind this is trust, a high sense of responsibility and tightly organized vaccination campaigns.
With material from Reuters