Covid Update from Austria

It’s All Happened Before, it is Happening Again, and a Brief Note on Vaccine Failure

Now there it is, the long-anticipated house arrest for ‘the unvaccinated’. I’ve written about this repeatedly, now Alex Berenson, to his great credit, brought it up as well.

So, the basics are known, would you care for some more particulars?

The most important issues are:

• None of this was unforeseen, and it’s a (stupid) lie by the current government that they didn’t know this ‘fourth wave’ was going to happen: it’s the same government as in summer.

• It took less than six hours for the governor of Upper Austria to proscribe comparable restrictions on ‘the vaccinated’ as well.

• It’s quite possibly unconstitutional, but we’re in these waters for quite some time now, so this isn’t something the government is concerned about, it would appear.

• In parts of Austria (Vienna), you could get a ‘booster shot’ already four (!) months after the second jab.

Now, for the meaty parts.

There’s quite a helpful summary by state broadcaster ORF, which inavertedly (?) paints a quite interesting picture:

‘Experts expressed doubts that these restrictions would have the desired effect. In an internal protocol of the Covid Risk Assessment Commission (Ampelkommission) , for example, it is stated that in view of the current situation, “hardly any noticeable effects” could be achieved. Criticism came from the opposition while many countries showed understanding for the rules.’

Funny enough, Bavaria also applied comparable measures within hours.

The only vocal opposition came from the far-right Freedom Party (which was, predictably, called ‘brute force’ by the left-liberal DerStandard; in case you care about what party chair Herbert Kickl said, these measures will be ‘fought with all the parliamentary and legal means at our disposal’). The small party NEOS (New Austria), a centrist-neoliberal fraction, merely stated they are against the house arrest and that since ‘vaccination’ cannot be decided upon until you reach age 14, all under that age should be exempted (the government set the child exemption at age 12).

Still, the above-referred summary by ORF also revealed the following admission-by-accident from Austria’s CDC equivalent, the Agentur für Ernährungssicherheit und Geseundheit (AGES; my emphasis):

‘According to the AGES representative, there are more vaccination breakthroughs than expected, primarily in the age group that was vaccinated for the first time between January and March 2021. A vaccine effectiveness analysis shows that persons have a disadvantage to the extent of a 1.4 to 1.5-fold higher risk of infection after the fourth month after completion of the first jab.’

In other words: the powers-that-be follow vaccine effectiveness (VE) from the first jab onwards. This works, it appears, like this in Austria:

Jab 1 + 21 days = jab 2 + 14 more days = ‘fully vaccinated’ + 90 days = ‘a disadvantage to the extent of a 40-50 % higher risk of infection with Covid-19.

I doubt that this was intended for public consumption, but it also explains why Vienna will let you get the ‘booster jab’ as early as four months after the second jab.

And there is (much) more, which I’ll get to in the next couple of days, such as retailers fearing losses of 350m € per week, but that’s for another post.

For now, I’ll leave you with the following ‘nugget’: Interior Secretary Karl Nehammer (of Schallenberg’s ÖVP) was at the same presser as the chancellor, and DerStandard reported his words as follows (there’s also a link for the TV statements, if you know German and are able to stomach this insufferable person):

‘“A closely monitored web of controls”, announces Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). “A lockdown for the unvaccinated is not a recommendation”, he also warns. The interior minister speaks of controls “on an unprecedented scale”—even if this brings no pleasure to any police officer to do so…There will be two additional patrol cars per district to check—also the 2G status. As always, only the public space will be patrolled. Nehammer appeals to everyone to comply with the measures in their own homes as well.’

As none of the present self-identifying journalists asked hard-ball questions, here goes:

Mr Nehammer, you speak of ‘unprecedented’ checks—would that ‘unprecedentedness’ include the years from 1933 through 1945?

Mr Nehammer—also, Chancellor Schallenberg—a follow-up, if I may: how do you justify this action, which makes Austria the first ‘western’ country after 1945 to arbitrarily lock up 1/3 of its inhabitants?

Finally, and this goes to the entire government, don’t you think that now you had better all tender your resignation, for I don’t think that your future career trajectory points upwards from this moment onwards?