In response to Fandango’s Who Won the Week posts, I have been looking at my own newsfeeds.
I just wanted to share this story with you this week. It’s referring to Austria, so it’s probably not an in-your-face story anywhere (except maybe Austria!), but certainly is available to follow in the rest of Europe.
Once again it is about our old friend COVID. Worried once more about the numbers, the Austrian government announced more lockdown measures, plus mandatory vaccinations. Read that bit again. Mandatory vaccinations.
I’m not going to comment on whether this is good or bad, I’ll let you guys be the judges. I just had the following observations.
- fundamentally, that Austria has a government which feels it can make such an edict. It must feel that people will either comply, or that it has the means to enforce this. It couldn’t happen in the UK, where there is no real ability to enforce, more of a hope that people will “do the right thing”. (Vaccination rates here are 80-90% so there is, indeed, widespread voluntary compliance.) And I don’t think even the remotest possibility in the US.
- If you read the story, that vaccinated people came out of lockdown (today), whereas for unvaccinated people, restrictions still apply. So this is an example of discriminatory laws being applied to the population as a whole.
Again, I don’t think this is something that could happen in the UK/US. Sure, people can say “you must be vaccinated, if you wish to work here”, but this stops short of an all-out “you must be vaccinated, or else…”
Think about this for a minute. Vaccinated/unvaccinated. How do they know? It’s one thing, wearing a mask or not – something that’s visible and obvious, but a vaccination?
Spooky, huh?
- Lastly, the guts of the story. People are out on the streets, protesting, and have been for several weeks. These people are civilised Europeans and seem only to protest at weekends, but the estimate was around 50,000, so a large demonstration, but not large in terms of the population as a whole (9M). We’ve seen in the UK how small groups of people can make a terrific amount of noise, but actually have little support at the ballot box.
Anyway, I just thought you might be interested what’s happening on mainland Europe. The Germans have introduced vaccinated/unvaccinated restrictions, too.
Mister Bump 
Indeed interesting. Thank you.
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To care or not to care, that is the question.
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Definitely won’t happen in the US our vaccination rate is what 60% I think and Biden in the beginning of the year really was on top of but then idiot CDC says if vaxxed no mask which is stupid and Biden said yup so it essentially became a honor system 😕
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There are a few combinations that don’t make sense. Here, 90% have had the first jab, but only 80% the second. Where’s that 10% come from? You’d think, if you’ve bought into one jab, then you’ve bought into both, surely?
Okay, you could explain that difference if you say “the 10% just haven’t been jabbed yet, but vaccines are available pretty much on demand here, so that doesn’t stack up, either.
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There’s a significant waiting period in Australia between jabs, so we always have a large discrepancy between the two numbers
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But that’s the thing, though. I mean, we’ve been issuing boosters for a few months now, even, so there shouldn’t really be anyone who wants a second jab but is having to wait.
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We’re only just starting boosters, my son only had his first jab last week but he was a conspiracy theorist. They told him he wouldn’t have a job if he didn’t get the jab. He decided even conspiracy theorists need to eat
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Funny you should say that, my auntie described the exact same situation with her son-in-law just this weekend. She is in Adelaide. He drives school buses.
I’d have thought if he objected that much, he would just quit. After all, it’s not an incredibly taxing job, I’m sure he could have found something similar. You know, if he felt that strongly about it.
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I’m in Adelaide too, but it’s common here that you have to have the jab to get/keep your job
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Here it’s invoking adamant refusal to get a jab out of defiance but they fail to see that this defiance is detrimental to the entire society including refusal to wear masks
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If someone has a principled objection, that’s one thing. But it’s where people have had one jab (therefore no principled objection) but not the second that baffles me.
I can kinda understand the principled objection, and might go that way myself if I were just 20, had no contact with riskier people, and cared nothing for “society”. I suspect lots of 20yos fall into that last category, for sure, because they have been taught to value themselves over everything.
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Which is scary in itself as future leaders but what is principled and I realize one cannot compel another to get the jabs but the greater problem is not going to get any better if everyone thinks this way
I will say during US lockdown last year many were more compliant and followed the rules so why not now?!
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A principled objector, as I see it, is just someone who believes that there is more risk from the vaccine than there is from covid.
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Ahhh
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Interesting post Pete!
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have you been following what’s going on in Europe? It’s fascinating. It kinda makes it plain that they are much more authoritarian than the UK. Not just the govts, but the people seem more willing to roll over.
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Wouldn’t dare try it here!
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I tell you where else we don’t hear much any more – the far east.
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They are all completely covid free, aren’t they?
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