Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As Austria re-imposed nationwide lockdown on Monday, Germany warned citizens to either “get vaccinated, be cured, or die”, and vaccine-protesters stubbornly refused jabs, the US advised its citizens against traveling to Germany and Denmark because of an exponential number of Covid-19 infections in these European nations in recent days.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) elevated its travel recommendation to “Level Four: Very High” for the two countries, telling Americans they should avoid travel there. The US State Department also issued a parallel “Do Not Travel” advisory for both countries, the media reported on Monday.
At present, the CDC lists about 75 destinations worldwide at Level Four, including European nations like Austria, Britain, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, Romania, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. These countries have recorded thousands of infection cases daily in recent days.
Even the fully vaccinated French Prime Minister Jean Castex tested positive on Monday, after a meeting in Brussels with De Croo, whose office later announced he and several ministers would quarantine.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted to her conservative party leaders that measures taken to stop the spread of the pandemic in Europe’s biggest economy were insufficient and that stronger action was required.
In particular, Germany has seen a spike in infection cases among both fully vaccinated elders and unvaccinated children.
Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged European nations to stop the virus from spreading further as deaths and infections surged. The WHO’s Hans Kluge warned that the current transmission rates in 53 European countries are of “grave concern” and fresh cases are nearing record levels, exacerbated by the more transmissible Delta variant.
“We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges of Covid-19, to preventing them from happening in the first place,” he said.
Germany has restricted large parts of public life in areas where hospitals are overflowing with Covid-19 patients. Its neighboring Austria re-imposed a full lockdown and renewed restrictions. German acting Health Minister Jens Spahn warned on Friday that Germany may follow.
Amid Europe’s battle against the upsurge, he warned Germans that they would either get “vaccinated, cured, or die” from the deadly virus by the end of winter.
Spahn did not rule out lockdowns but said this would be decided by local authorities. Some regions, like the hard-hit Saxony and Bavaria, have already canceled Christmas markets.
In Germany, the seven-day incidence rate (the number of people per 100,000 to be infected over the last week) hit 399.8 on Tuesday, up from 386.5 on Monday, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases confirmed. Belgium and the Netherlands are still reeling from clashes that rocked weekend protests against new anti-Covid measures.
Europe’s return to the pandemic’s epicenter has been blamed on sluggish vaccine uptake in some nations, the highly contagious Delta variant, and colder weather moving people indoors again.
Austria had already closed shops, restaurants, and festive markets on Monday, the most drastic restrictions seen in western Europe for months. Its 8.9 million people are allowed to leave home only to go to work, shop for essentials, or exercise. Vienna is also planning to make vaccination mandatory from February 1, one of few places to announce such a move.
In Slovakia, officials have blocked unvaccinated people from entering non-essential stores.
Vaccine protesters are making things worse. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte labeled three nights of unrest as “pure violence” by “idiots” and his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo called violence at a 35,000-strong protest in Brussels “absolutely unacceptable”.
Thousands of vaccine skeptics, protesting against “dictatorship”, have been protesting in different countries and dozens were arrested in the Netherlands last week as Belgian police fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse them.
The Red Cross said on Monday that the pandemic had damaged the “fabric of society”. Women and migrants were among the most affected by secondary effects of the crisis such as income loss, food insecurity, reduced protection against violence, and worsening mental health issues.
Austria re-imposed a partial lockdown after its Chancellor Alexander Schellenberg criticized the “shamefully low” vaccine rate—only 66 percent compared to France’s 75 percent, and Germany’s 68 percent–and banned the unvaccinated from public spaces. When that proved ineffective, he announced a nationwide lockdown, with an evaluation after 10 days.
Germany has urged all vaccinated adults to get a booster dose as well to combat waning vaccine efficacy after six months. Two French advisory bodies also made a similar appeal on Monday.