Vienna: Austria returned to partial locking in the most dramatic covid-19 restrictions seen in Western Europe for months after weekend violence against virus steps shake several cities on the continent.
Alpine Nation also imposes a sweeping vaccine mandate from February 1, one of several places in the world to announce such a step so far.
Shops, restaurants and markets are festive closed on Monday, while 8.9 million people are not allowed to leave home with some exceptions such as going to work, shopping for important things and exercising because the case of the virus soared.
Schools and kindergartens remain open, even though parents are asked to keep children at home if possible even though there is no distance learning offered during three weeks locking.
One parent, Kathrin Steuser, said he still dropped his daughter nine and 11, both of them recently vaccinated, to school.
“This is a very confusing situation,” he told AFP.
The steps came after the weekend clashes violence in several European cities – including in Belgium and the Netherlands – where tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest Covid steps.
Read Alsothree Reasons Why Covid Spiking Cases In Europe Again, According to the World Health Organization Experts (WHO) have warned that Europe once again became a ‘episentrent’ of Covid-19 pandemic, with the central and eastern regions that were hit mainly due to low levels of vaccination and politicians Reluctant to take difficult steps to control the spread.
The police said protested was attended by 35,000.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Monday slammed “violence with guard protest”, said he defended the right to show peacefully, but “will never accept that idiots use pure violence”.
And in Denmark this weekend, around 1,000 demonstrators protested the government’s plan to restore Covid passes for civil servants.
“People want to live,” said one of the organizers of the Dutch protest, Joost era.
“That’s why we are here.” The 40,000 crowd lined up through Vienna on Saturday clrying “dictatorship”, while around 6,000 people protested in the city of Linz on Sunday.
Vienna rally was held by distant political parties, and several protesters wearing a yellow star reading “not vaccinated”, imitating the star David Nazis forcing Jews to be used during the Holocaust.
French troops headed to Guadeloupe on Sunday after a week of riots over Covid’s steps, while Prime Minister Jean Castex will hold a meeting in Paris with officials from the French Caribbean Island.
The streets were blocked on week after protesters opposed the night hours looting and burning shops and pharmacies last night, when police made 38 arrests and two members of the security forces were injured.
Violence came as a spiral covid infection in Europe.
German health minister Jens Spahn issued a new call on Monday for citizens to vaccinate.
“Maybe at the end of this winter, as sometimes said cynically, almost everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, heal or die,” said Spahn, blaming “a very contagious Delta variant”.
The decision of Austria flies in facing previous promises that difficult virus restrictions would be something from the past.
During the summer, the Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has declared a “over” pandemic.
But the plateau of inoculation tariffs, recorded a case number and the increase in the death toll has forced the government to walk back with a bold claim.
After serving in October, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg criticized the “embarrassing low” vaccine rate – 66 percent compared to 75 percent of France – and forbade punches from public spaces.
When it proved ineffective when squeezing new infections, he announced a national lock, with an evaluation after 10 days.
Political Analyst Thomas Hofer blames Schallenberg for maintaining a “fiction” of a pandemic that managed to contain too long.
“The government does not consider the warning from the next wave seriously,” he told AFP.
“Chaos is clear.”