Covid in Austria: LAST WARNING as Health Minister Rauch Decrees 3-Jab Minimum Req, No More Recovery-as-Exemption from 23 Aug. 2022 Onwards = TYRANNY LOOMS

As some mandates are temporarily revoked, 'experts' and legacy media ramp up the fear-factor to prepare the grounds for the imposition of biopolitical tyranny by the end of summer

Well, that was fast—since my last two dedicated postings (here and here) a few days ago, another bout of ‘news’ coming out of Covidistan: while the timeline of these items overlaps a bit, it’s important to follow them nonetheless: for while Scandinavia is somewhat ‘more’ sane these days, the country I was born in—in particular its expert and political castes—resembles an insane asylum gone ragingly mad.

No ‘Recommendation’ for a 4th Injection (Yet)

On 23 May, legacy media reported that the ‘National Immunisation Consortium’ (Nationales Impfgremium, Covidistan’s equivalent to the infamous German StiKo), at this time at least, ‘does not recommend a fourth vaccination for everyone 12 and older’. As the Consortium’s chairwoman explained to Die Presse, Vienna’s leading liberal-bourgeois newspaper:

If nothing unexpected happens, there will be no general recommendation to get a fourth vaccination in autumn, says Ursula Wiedermann-Schmidt of the National Immunisation Consortium. The third vaccination is all the more important, because a previous infection does not replace it.

While this sounds totally illogical, in particular the last sentence, I’ll beg your pardon as we’ll deal with this notion further down below. For the moment, let’s see what else Dr. Wiedermann-Schmidt had to say (my emphases):

‘After infection with omicron, immunity does not last long, and protection is mainly limited to Omicron. Only three vaccinations provide a broad and long-lasting immune response’, says Wiedermann-Schmidt, Chair of the Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna, professor of vaccinology, and member of the National Immunisation Consortium. [line break added for clarity]

So, for example, if someone comes down with Omicron a few months after the second vaccination, they should still get a third vaccination six months after recovery in order to achieve an even more stable and potent immunity. This is because, ‘the antigen of the virus must be presented to the lymph nodes several times, and this is only reliably the case after three vaccinations, ideally with a longer interval of about six months between the second and third time’.

That said, it is not very likely that there will be a recommendation for a fourth vaccination for the general population in the autumn, because, ‘without a new, more dangerous variant, I see no reason for a recommendation for the entire population to be vaccinated a fourth time’.

I’ll spare you her ‘intellectual’ contortions in the rest of the article, but the enthusiastic hobby immunologist in me wonders about the following issues (and perhaps you, my dear readers, can help me on this one):

Here I thought that the way our immune system works is that natural immunity is quite a good thing to have and to acquire over time. I am flabbergasted, if not dumbfounded by the claim that ‘only three injections’ with a product ‘designed’ around the ancestral (Wuhan) strain would confer such protection.

I almost fell off my chair typing these lines when I read Dr. Wiedermann-Schmidt’s assertion that ‘the antigen of the virus must be presented to the lymph nodes several times’, by which she meant ‘after three injections’: why, then, did I only get one smallpox shot in the early 1980s? What about measles? I mean, I see the booster benefit with tetanus shots once a decade or so, but…the Covid injections?

When I pondered these issues, I also thought to myself (I know, it’s bad and wrong, offensive to certain people, and gets me in trouble all the time): why three injections? How can you be so sure about the number (true, the Holy Trinity also has this particular number)?

And: wouldn’t the ‘recommendation’ to get three injections equal the fact that the EUA products—which were ‘tested’ and ‘studied’ for two injections = a complete series, but I digress—failed to induce said protective immunisation?

In other words: is this you, Professor Wiedermann-Schmidt, telling the hoi polloi that you’re arbitrarily making up numbers of injections to curry favour with those who say so? To me, that’s what the last statement reads like: sure, three injections, but also perhaps a fourth one, ‘if needed’.

Here’s more from ‘the expert’ (my emphases):

Many, however, ‘have not even received a booster yet’, says Wiedermann-Schmidt. Yet, those who have been vaccinated twice should wait until late summer or autumn, ‘because that is when [injection-induced] protection is highest, that is in autumn and winter, in particular mucosal immunity, i.e., the immunity on the mucous membranes, which not only prevents severe courses, but also infections—at least for a short time—and to a certain high percentage’. This in turn ‘could incidentally already be a reason to make a general recommendation for the fourth vaccination in autumn: an incipient strong wave that could be broken with a further dose and the associated mucosal immunity that prevents infections’, the expert qualified.

Well, here’s what else happened…(by sheer coincidence, I’m sure)

Mandates are Revoked—With an Eye on Future Variants

As state broadcaster ORF announced yesterday (30 May), the next round of ‘lessening of mandates’ are due to enter into force on 1 June, just in time for the summer holiday season (which, according to the Kronen Zeitung from 22 May, will be ‘10-15% more expensive than last year’)—and which I wrote about last week—many more

mandates will be revoked from 1 June onwards, with the exception of Vienna. Meanwhile, under the wings of the revocations, the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 are causing worry and debates among the experts.

Here’s the ‘justification’ for these worries, which, according to ORF (my emphases),

are currently supported by the Portuguese experience: there, the BA.5 variant, which was detected for the first time at the end of March, not only dominates the Pandemic with almost 80%of all reported new infections [due to this variant], but is also causing a significant increase in the number of cases.

In view of more than 30,000 infections per day [note the casual conflation of ‘cases’ and ‘infections’], virologists are talking about an ‘explosion of new infections’, at least in the Tagesspiegel, according to which the ‘hope for a normal summer’ is now increasingly fading because of BA.5. Instead, the again-increasing pressure on hospitals and the increasing quarantine-related absences of workers are, again, accompanied by louder calls for a tightening of the Covid mandates, which are currently also largely abolished in Portugal.

What a pity, or coincidence, eh?

While the ECDC ‘doesn’t yet have enough information available’, ORF writes, a ‘considerable increase of infections across Europe’ is expected. Still,

whether and what consequences this could have remains largely open in the ECDC forecast. According to the ECDC, there are no indications yet that the two new variants would be more severe than BA.1 and BA.2, but the data are still rather vague.

Translation: it may be worse, or not, and while we don’t know for sure, let’s just hope for the worst, shall we?

This is borne out by the ensuing flame war over on Guano Island between the (SP-led) Vienna state government vs. the (Green-led) Health Ministry over the variant monitoring. This is hilarious, as the former freely admitted they don’t know anything while claiming that the government doesn’t monitor just hard enough:

Vienna, ‘like all other federal states’, does not know the shares of the variants at the moment, according to the spokesperson of the Vienna City Health Councillor Peter Hacker (SPÖ), Mario Dujakovic. In addition to the phasing out of the school tests [which were a financial boon to SP-connected lab ‘Lifebrain’], he criticised via Twitter the currently ‘low-level virus variant monitoring’, thereby prompting a ‘discussion about reduced waste-water analyses’.

Spokesperson for Health Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens), Daniel Böhm, denied via Twitter that ‘the federal government had stopped variant monitoring’. According to him, ‘more emphasis is currently being placed on Sentinel analysis in order to be able to distinguish more precisely between the different Omicron variants’.

Note that ‘Sentinel’ relates to waste-water analyses for traces of Sars-Cov-2.

This is hilariously stupid, alright, as molecular biologist Ulrich Elling of the Academy of Sciences explains: surveillance was ‘never before applied so systematically’, adding that ‘all states are reducing monitoring at this moment, including PCR testing’, thus, taking to Guano Island, Dr. Elling bird-pooped this:

Data for BA.4/5 are becoming clearer and clearer. This will, in all likelihood, result in a wave in July. So much for 3 months without mask mandates…

Oh, lest I forget—that ORF piece concludes with a reference to the most recent decree by none other than Health Minister Johannes Rauch, to which we turn in just a moment.

Fear! The! Next! Variants! (to impose full-blown tyranny)

This fearmongering was amplified by Jasmin Altrock who, writing for Der Standard just yesterday, questioned the temporary revocation of mandates:

Even though the end of mask requirements from 1 June onwards may suggests an end of the Pandemic, experts expect the next wave earlier than anticipated—as early as July. This is due to the Omicron sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5, which are said to be even more contagious than earlier strains.

You can see how ‘contagious’ these are in South Africa: not exactly a nothingburger, but in about that range. By contrast, here’s what notorious mandate fanatic Dorothee von Laer (prof.—virology—U Innsbruck) had to say about this:

BA.4 and BA.5 have just caused a wave in South Africa, and the number of infections with these two variants is also steadily increasing in our country.

Yet, neither OWID nor the above-quoted admissions that Austrian authorities don’t have anything remotely resembling sound data about this appears to change either Ms. von Laer’s mind, nor did her or Ms. Altrock check the publicly available data before voicing such thoroughly misleading piece of disinformation.

Looks like South Africa, ground zero for Omicron, is faring quite well compared to its more ‘advanced’ peers, eh? Note, in particular, the fact that while Omicron, according to ‘the experts’, is spreading like wildfire in South Africa, their waves are extremely small compared to the gigantic Omicron binge in both Portugal and Austria.

This makes me wonder about something, you know…

I know, correlation ≠ causation, but I do wonder about the relationship between these two parameters…

You know, Ms. Altrock also quotes Ulrich Elling, again, who holds that (my emphases)

‘The latest data show that the BA.4 and BA.5 variants can primarily bypass the immune defences of BA.1-recovered individuals. In Austria, that’s about 15% of the population.’ Since most of them have also had their last vaccination some time ago, they will be able to contract one of the two variants that are now becoming established relatively easily. The good news is that those with BA.2 should have a relatively high level of protection: ‘This fact, plus the seasonal effect, should help to ensure that the next wave, while coming as early as summer, should remain fairly flat.’

So, is this BA.4/5 hype overblown or what?

Virologist von Laer also sounds the all-clear, especially as far as the healthcare system is concerned: ‘I don't see any danger of hospitals being overloaded in the summer. Yes, BA.4 and BA.5 are clearly more contagious, but still lead to less severe courses than was the case with Delta.’

I don’t understand why we’re still giving a platform to those who conflate Omicron (whatever variant) with Delta.

I also cannot, for the life of me, understand rationally as to why these ‘experts’ are so eager to cry ‘fire!’ in a crowded theatre, but the final paragraph reveals a bit about the ‘why?’ issue:

[Vienna state health secretary] Hacker’s office reports: the federal government does not currently pay for variant sequencing, so laboratories would have to do it on their own account. In addition, wastewater monitoring is to be scaled back. This means, however, that we do not know exactly which variants are circulating and to what extent—which makes forecasts for the further course of the pandemic more uncertain.

To summarise: whatever data is coming out of South Africa indicates that Omicron (whatever variant) has been causing waves that pale in comparison to those experienced in, e.g., Portugal and Austria.

Yet, ‘the experts’ (given a media platform) are quoted with increasingly shrill cries of alarm and pants on fire, yet, once one reads beyond the headlines, even notorious mandate-and-injection hawks like Mr. Elling and Ms. von Laer aren’t really concerned about BA.4/5.

So, what is it and, perhaps more importantly, why are these people and their ‘expert opinions’ given so much room by legacy media?

To find out about this, let’s see if the most recent decree by Health Minister Rauch has something to do with this, shall we?

Mr. Rauch Decrees: Get Injected by 23 Aug., or Else…

As I’ve been saying all along with regard to the abomination masquerading as Injection Mandate, which is, in really, a kind of Enabling Legislation, as I’ve explained back before Christmas 2021:

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

There are many problematic issues in this piece of junk legislation, in particular the following (as per my above piece)

• the codification of the number of jabs, the time differentials between them, and the vaccines (§4);

• the empowerment, or authorisation, of a single government minister (the Health Minister) to determine which vaccines, how many jabs, and on what grounds these may be decreed (§ 4 and 5);

• the option of repeat fines of up to 3,600 € for those who fail to get vaccinated, even though there’s one caveat (as in the wording that holds that no one can be physically forced to either pay or get vaccinated), which opens the door to arbitrary enforcement (§ 7 and 8);

Back in December, I wrote that

this is a power grab by the Health Minister who will obtain tyrannical powers that exceeds anything seen in Central Europe since 1945…

The key sections are §3 (5 and 6) and §4 (7) that authorise the Health Minister the singular authority to decree any changes to the vaccines to be used, the number of jabs, and to the assessment of the ‘scientific basis’ for these measures. Then there are §8 (2) that affords the Health Minister to decree the amount of fees as he or she sees fit, as well as §10 (2) that empowers health insurance providers to similarly alter payment amounts and reimbursement schemes for any of these administrative measures. Finally, §12 (2 and 3) reaffirm the authority claimed by federal (Health Minister) and state executives (governors) to ‘enforce’ all and any part of the Act.

Guess what—Johannes Rauch did just that.

According to his most recent decree with respect to the Injection Mandate (official version here), we learn the following

§4 (1) persons who remain unvaccinated must receive (a) the first injection, (b) within 65 days thereafter a second injection, and (c) within 190 days thereafter a third injection.

Translation: now 3 injections = ‘basic immunisation’ (sic), even though the EUA was granted for a two-dose course.

§4 (2) and (3) mandates that all people who received but one or two doses before the Injection Act entered into force must begin a new injection series [of three jabs], if the first injection (but no second jab) occurred 360 or more days earlier, as well as obliges everyone to get a second and third jab accordingly.

§4 (4) obliges all those who were infected with Sars-Cov-2 (but refused to get injected thereafter) to commence the three-dose injection cycle within 180-190 days after a positive PCR-confirmed test result

§4 (5-10) provides further particulars by removing virtually all exemptions deriving from infection.

In other words: Johannes Rauch, this piece of shit, just as I warned any such empowered minister would, decreed that ‘infection’ wouldn’t count towards the Injection Mandate.

All he had to do was—issue a decree.

As a though experiment, you may ask yourself: if this was, say, Russia or Iran, how would you think (or media report on it)?

‘Fortunately’, we know the answer in the case of Covidistan.

Here’s how state broadcaster ORF wrote about this (my emphases):

The decree on the relaxation of Covid protective measures [sic], which enters into force on 1 June, also brings changes to the Green Passport as a consequence. From 23 August, the combination of vaccination and recovery will no longer be sufficient for a valid certificate. The Covid vaccination obligation remains suspended throughout the country during the summer.

Talk about bread crumbs and sticks, eh?

Recovery No Longer Substitutes for Vaccination

For a basic immunisation, three injections are thus uniformly required—this has already been recommended by the National Immunisation Consortium. Until now, a convalescence before the first injection was considered an ‘immunological event’ in its own right. A recovery is still valid for six months [180 days], but it no longer substitutes for one injection, the Ministry of Health said in a press release.

In addition, further exceptions to the 3-G rule have been created (besides pregnancy and danger to health through vaccination [ahem])—its proof is now also omitted for those persons who would not be subject to compulsory vaccination due to a lack of immune response to vaccination. The confirmation that one has already received for a compulsory vaccination exemption is sufficient for this.

Mr. Rauch just abolished—by decree, no less—‘recovery’ as grounds for a temporary postponement of the injection mandate.

As ORF further reported writing about the Health Ministry’s press release,

A re-introduction of mandatory masking is expected in autumn—if cases rise again earlier, even before that point in time.

Bottom Lines: The Future Looks Increasingly Bleak

I’ve warned about precisely this danger of executive overreach and bio-medical tyranny for months. In my bespoke pieces, I’ve mentioned the Enabling Act of 1933 that cemented into place Hitler’s dictatorial régime in Nazi Germany—to no avail.

The Courts have so far refused to hold the régime to account (read about it here and here) while all but ending the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches.

Health Minister and bio-fascist tyrant Johannes Rauch arbitrarily, but no less tyrannically so, decreed that the period of leniency will end on 23 August 2022:

According to the official publication (Bundesgesetzblatt 2022/II/201, original here), irrespective of a person’s medical history, any exemptions—e.g., from recovery—will expire 180 days after 23 August 2022.

There is no recourse made to scientific findings, no learning from other countries (such as the Scandinavian ones), or reflection.

These fascists just do whatever the f*** they want, and they will not stop—unless they are stopped.

If there has been any residual doubt about the ‘inclinations’ of these tyrants, there can be no more doubt about their intentions.

The window of opportunity to act is rapidly closing: 23 August is less than three months away.

This is the final warning by the Covidistan régime.