Austria hits panic button.

@spaceHopper wrote

How are you getting that from the charts in the post you quoted?

Whereas doing nothing and letting the bodies pile up should be the strategy instead? Still want to "f*ck the hospitals"? or calmed down yet?

It's a deflection mechanism, "they would have died anyway" and "restrictions don't work" are the typical refrain.

Depends, but outside of the big cities, under €4 for half litre of a local beer.

Among my friends, people are annoyed. They feel they have sacrificed enough for long enough. We don't feel like shops should be closed but understand that bars and restaurants give too much close unmasked contact. Especially the week of Black Friday where many were planning to shop.

The vaccine mandate, we wish it weren't necessary and aren't sure it's even the right way to do it. There's a lot of pushback from anti-vaxxers. One suggestion from a friend was to not have a vaccine mandate but instead only give social welfare, state pensions etc to vaccinated. Getting vaccinated is part of participating in society with this pandemic.

"many" feel that the government is being reactive rather than proactive and haven't an actual clue or plan. Rules change very frequently and it disrupts any plans that a person or business can put in place.

That's pretty much every government at the moment. Being proactive means hardship without a clear reason or based on what might happen, the electorate don't like that.

It's pretty extreme, I'll admit. I'd be ok with it being threatened and discussed but implementation would be a bit harsh, especially when there are many other steps the government could take the reduce cases.

Like closing the ski lifts. Sure skiing is a solo effort, but the partying afterwards, and the cramped lifts up are where the outbreak in europe really started.

Then there was the fiasco last year with british ski instructors basically sneaking in, declaring austria as a second residence (airbnb) to get around restrictions.

That's quite a mental leap. Have you considered gymnastics? By that leap, I would assume you think that the only unvaccinated are old or poor.

Austria has the lowest uptake of vaccinations of comparable european countries. Participation in society comes with responsibilities. People who are wilfully remaining unvaccinated are endangering themselves others - whether it's taking up another bed in a hospital or spreading the disease to others.

I'm also in favour of strict measures to insure that fewer lives are lost, and fewer people have the long term side-effects of a disease that has infected over a million in austria alone.

@Raoul Duke III wrote

In the interview I posted a link to earlier the chancellor said fines would be levied.

No more detail than that.

For now you get a letter in the post with an appointment. If you skip it long enough you get penalties after February. I read starting with 600 Euro.

A lawyer suggested to link the vaccine status to transfer payments, same as for kids vaccination as this is common. If parents ignore them, they lose privilege and transfer payments like child benefits.

If you don't abide by the rules of the law why do you expect to be treated like you do? Pension might be different to unemployment payment. Latter you lose if you don't actually look for a job. You still get paid but far less.

Once you turn something like say social welfare into a bargaining chip it will in time alter how people see the state.

It's supposed to be a social safety net, not a "carrot" or reward for conformity.

As for removing tax credits, you're only pushing people into the black market.

Basically the more drastic the punishment the less identification people will feel towards the establishment.

@Wibbs wrote

Well the R0 of delta is supposed to be around 6-8 from what I recall. So a drop to the current estimated R of around 1.3 is an impressive achievement for the combination of vaccines, light restrictions, and general cop-on we have in play at the moment.

Of course some people argue that the vaccines are ineffective and the regulations are ineffective, leaving only cop-on to reduce R by a factor of 5-ish. Which seems a monumental stretch, but whatever.

It isn't war-like at all, apart from the mental atmosphere which the media have modelled on war hysteria.

The obsession with life-extension for the elderly is fairly recent and would look strange to previous generations. Deaths of the very old would not be a crisis to any human society of the past.

Social cohesion can only be increased if people choose vaccination which is why all the threats, penalties, stigma, blame, pressure and snarling create alienation.

A nod towards a basic understanding of human psychology would be useful, but like so many things it's beyond many.

If you do not understand what is causing the problem you cannot solve it. Quite simply 7% of the adult population are hogging over 50% of hospital and ICU beds which they would not be if they were vaccinated.

If like pubs and restaurants we decided you needed a COVID certificate to enter hospital that would solve the problem. Would you be happy with that solution. Send them home with a packet of paracetamol if they have no cert.

That small negible group are hogging hospital beds and ICU. That means cancer patients cannot receive treatment. A Dublin hospital has to cancel a transplant operation lat week as it had no ICU beds.

That is the problem not rats hat people ate getting infected.