Branch Covidian Advent Calender, 6 Dec. 2023

'With the introduction of vaccination mandates, it is actually illegal to live in Austria and be unvaccinated.' Minister for Constitutional Affairs Karoline Edtstadtler, 16 Feb. 2022

I suppose enough has been said about this trainwreck of a politician (she’s also a mother, and I may only marvel at the kind of parenting she does…)

With the introduction of vaccination mandates, it is actually illegal to live in Austria and be unvaccinated.

Thus Minister for Constitutional Affairs Karoline Edtstadtler (ÖVP), 16 Feb. 2022.

Oh, lest I forget, here’s a clickable source link.

Personal Note

I very much deplore these kinds of people, but this one is very personal.

I’ve been living abroad (call it ‘the expat experience’, if you like) since 2010, first in Switzerland, interspersed with a term as a Visiting Professor in the US, and since 2020 in Norway.

For reasons I honestly cannot explain, throughout all these years, I maintained a ‘secondary residence’ (orig. Nebenwohnsitz) in Austria. So, in early 2022, I wrote the following lines to the competent registration authority:

My question to you is: according to §1, the vaccination mandate ‘only’ applies to people who have their main residence in Austria—is this correct?

Lo and behold, here’s the answer I eventually received:

When the [vaccination mandate] speaks about residences within the meaning of the Registration Act, it means all forms of residences.

In my view, this therefore also includes secondary residences. Homelessness notifications (main residence confirmation) have even been implemented in the law.

I then moved to de-register my secondary residence in the country I was born in.

I’m not a lawyer, but the phrase beginning with ‘In my view’ indicates that the above position is a legally shaky one to begin with, and I suppose that if push came to shove, a number of court cases would have tested such assertions by civil servants.

Still, what a bad memory. Apologies for the OT rant.

Read up on my take on the Impfpflicht from two years ago here:

Covidistan Annals VII: a detailed look at the Vaxx Mandate, its implications, and the (dark) future it portends

#we won’t forget