How Not to Impose a Mandate
What was supposed to be a cornerstone of the government’s vaccination strategy is beginning to look like a damp squib
Servus!
Around the time the vaccine mandate bill was set to pass parliament, I wrote to you explaining that the mandate’s implementation still faced a number of hurdles both political and logistical. It looked like there would be problems of monitoring and enforcement: Franz Leisch, CEO of ELGA, the firm responsible for managing Austria’s electronic vaccination certificate system, said he did not believe the requisite technology would be ready much before April 1. There was also the problem of internal dissent and a lack of political unity, with select MPs set to abstain and stay away from the mandate vote.
Parliament did indeed pass the vaccine mandate into law, and the country is now in the implementation period which will last until March 15 and during which every household in the country will receive a letter in the mail informing them about the mandate and how it will work. Yet since mid-January when I last wrote about this subject, the mandate’s problems have only multiplied, and what was supposed to be a cornerstone of the government’s vaccination strategy is beginning to look like a damp squib.
At the beginning of November, the number of vaccines administered per day in Austria began to climb again having been in the doldrums all summer. This was not simply a consequence of people getting their booster shots. From the beginning of November until the end of December, the percentage of the population in receipt of at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine shot up from 65.99 percent to 73.47 percent. This increase can in part be attributed to the Delta wave, but it also had something to do with the government imposing a lockdown on the unvaccinated and announcing its intention to introduce mandatory vaccination. Whether due to fear of the virus or fear of exclusion, enough undecideds were triggered enough to get the jab and bring the vaccination rate up above the European Union average.
Now, just as the vaccine mandate is becoming a reality, the vaccination rate has plateaued again. As of writing, 74.71 percent of the population has had at least one jab, and on February 7, only 1,442 first shots were administered nationwide in a country of almost 9 million people. A study conducted by the University of Vienna in conjunction with the Austrian Corona Panel Project suggests that only 0.9 percent of the adult population remains unvaccinated and willing to get the shot, in contrast to 4.2 percent who remain undecided and 11.9 percent who are dead set against it. The threat of the mandate, then, may prove to have had more of an impact than the law itself.
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It does not help matters that the government has sent mixed signals about vaccination, imposing a vaccine mandate at the same time as it has decided to loosen existing coronavirus regulations. The lockdown for the unvaccinated, which began in November, is over. The 2G rule will no longer apply to shops as of Saturday, while a negative test result will once again count as a valid ticket of entry to hairdressers, nail salons, and (outside of Vienna) restaurants later this month. Because coronavirus testing remains free and readily available nationwide, it will soon be possible for the unvaccinated to live entirely normal lives once more, taking away another incentive for holdouts to get the jab.
Speaking of incentives, the government also appears to have failed in its attempt to create a vaccine lottery, a key part of the vaccine mandate law, part of the compromise between government and opposition. The lottery—which would have given the vaccinated a one in 10 chance of winning a €500 voucher to spend in businesses that pay tax in Austria—was due to have been administered by the public broadcaster, the ORF. No one, it seems, thought to ask the ORF, which in any case already ran its own vaccination lottery before Christmas, with prizes including a house, an electric car, and a kitchen. The ORF declined, and the government is now scrambling around trying to find either a new partner for the lottery or a different format for its envisaged financial incentive.
And that’s not all. Doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics nationwide report being overwhelmed by people looking to secure written exemptions from the vaccine. Police unions, meanwhile, have warned that officers are already working at max capacity and will not be able to carry out effective checks of people’s vaccine status as to enforce the mandate in practice. The government has a few weeks yet to work out the kinks prior to March 16, the date after which the mandate is supposed to be enforced and monitored. But thus far, it must be argued that the mandate’s implementation has been amateurish, an embarrassment for the government and the health ministry both. Short of a sharp turnaround in fortunes, the government runs the risk of having a mandate on the books without it taking effect in any meaningful way.
Bis bald!