The expert commission set up by the government to evaluate compulsory vaccination is due to present its first report on Tuesday. On this basis, the ÖVP and the Greens want to decide whether violations will be sanctioned from mid-March. Almost a million adults are currently violating the vaccination requirement, according to figures from the Ministry of Health. There has been little progress in vaccination since the beginning of February.
The number of adults affected by compulsory vaccination has fallen by more than 404,000 since the beginning of February – from 1.3 million to 972,289. However, only 60,765 people have been vaccinated since February. Since then, significantly more people have dropped the vaccination requirement because they have been infected with the corona virus: 729,000 people are currently considered to have recovered, so they do not have to be vaccinated for the time being. The decline is therefore almost exclusively due to the high number of infections with the omicron variant.
Three quarters of Austrians with a vaccination certificate
The numbers in detail: Three quarters of the adult population currently have a valid vaccination certificate. That is 5.69 million people and only slightly more than at the beginning of February (5.63 million). Since then, the number of people who have recovered has more than doubled – from 324,000 to 729,000.
This means that 13 percent of adults in Austria are currently violating compulsory vaccination. The proportion is particularly high in Vienna (16 percent), Carinthia and Vorarlberg (14 percent each). Upper Austria is on average at 13 percent, while Styria, Salzburg and Lower Austria are slightly below at 12 percent. The fewest violations of compulsory vaccination are in Tyrol and Burgenland, each with 11 percent.
Ironic top position
Ironically, however, the capital Vienna owes its top position in the vaccination violations to its overall successful fight against corona. Because the vaccination rate in Vienna is 77 percent higher than in Upper Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia and also Vorarlberg. The fact that more Viennese are still violating the obligation to vaccinate is due to the comparatively low number of infections.
This means that only 7.4 percent of the population in Vienna are exempt from compulsory vaccination thanks to a certificate of recovery. Only in Burgenland are there fewer (6.4 percent). For comparison: In Salzburg and Upper Austria, 13 percent of the population have been infected in the last six months and are therefore exempt from the obligation to vaccinate for the time being.
Source: Nachrichten
