Covid-19: Austria eyes raising age for compulsory jabs to 18

Austria’s government proposed on Sunday setting the minimum age for mandatory coronavirus vaccinations against Covid-19 at 18 and rolling out the programme in stages from February 1, seeking to build broad consensus for the disputed step.

The conservative-led government had said last month it intended the mandate to apply to all people aged 14 and up, the first European Union country to make vaccinations compulsory for the general population.

“This is not a fight between the vaccinated and unvaccinated,” Chancellor Karl Nehammer, just emerging from quarantine after contracting Covid-19, told a news conference in Vienna a day after thousands marched against the plan.

Nehammer said the government needs to press ahead because too many remain unvaccinated to allow people to mingle freely, stressing the need to avoid more lockdowns.

Nearly 72 per cent of Austria’s population has a valid vaccination certificate. Many Austrians are sceptical of vaccines, a view encouraged by the libertarian-minded, far-right Freedom Party, the third biggest in parliament.

Parliament is scheduled to vote on the plan this week.

Critics of vaccine mandates say that apart from the issue of personal freedoms, current jabs do not prevent viral transmission or re-infection and that the now dominant Omicron variant of the coronavirus appears to be milder, causing less serious illness, than previous variants.

Nehammer said an entry phase of mandatory inoculations would last until mid-March and give people another chance to get jabs without being fined if caught in an inspection.

People who are still not vaccinated will get reminders, and in a third phase get invitations to vaccination appointments that will trigger penalties if not taken up.

“In the best case we won’t even need this third phase,” Nehammer said.

The government is keen to avoid reintroducing a full lockdown like the one the country emerged from last month, its fourth of the pandemic.