The Covidistan Committee of Public Safety Meets

What's Coming After the 'House Arrest' Policy Failure?

While I’ll provide a longer, in-depth tomorrow, here’s a brief update on current events and developments in Covidistan, courtesy of state broadcaster ORF.

‘Lockdown and compulsory vaccination remain the defining domestic issues. On Monday and Tuesday, the further course of action will be discussed. After all, the curfews are to last until 12 December, and compulsory vaccination is to come into force on 1 February 2022. Meanwhile, simulation researcher Niki Popper reiterated the importance of first-time vaccinations.’

In my weekend round-up, I mentioned that the régime’s policies are failing, and here’s some more prima facie evidence of my view. As I type these lines, the Covidistan Committee of Public Safety meets. Here’s ORF on this:

‘On Monday morning, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP), Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler and Health Minister Wolfgang Mückstein (both Greens) will therefore meet with social partners and experts from business and science to take stock of the situation after one week of lockdown. The situation is to be evaluated from an epidemiological, but also from an economic point of view, according to the Chancellery. No decisions are to be made.’

In a desperate bid not to appear as the Grinches who stole Christmas (I’m not making this up, by the way), this is the problem faced by the Covidistan régime:

‘The President of the Chamber of Commerce, Harald Mahrer…demanded in the Kronen-Zeitung [the country’s largest daily newspaper] that the doors must be opened again on 13 December. And in tourism, he said, a winter season had to be ensured: “We're talking about 15 billion € in added value and 200,000 employees.” Mahrer criticised the slow pace of vaccination in Austria and called for a new start in involving all stakeholders. Currently, “everything is moving too slowly”. One should “not steal Christmas from the people” [told you], said Mahrer.’

‘Experts’ from all walks of life, including the main labour organisations, agreed with the Chamber of Commerce (I’m not making this up either). They were seconded by scholar Nikolas Popper, Coordinator of the Centre for Computational Complex Systems at the Technical University of Vienna (official site). Speaking on national state radio earlier on Monday, Popper said that (my emphasis):

‘above all the number of first vaccinations must increase. Recently, the government had repeatedly referred to the significant increase in vaccinations. The majority of these are, of course, third jabs, which [Health Minister] Mückstein, for example, described as very important.

Popper…stressed that…these people [who get their third jab] were highly motivated and would get the third jab anyway. But it would be “even more important” to have “clear communication” to encourage the first jab.’

There you have it: the régime’s intention had been to increase the ‘vaccination’ uptake, yet it’s their own words that reveal the impending failure of this coercive course of action.

Policy Failure

As an aside, how high is Covidistan’s ‘vax uptake’ as of today? According to the régime’s own data, this is the status (as of 28 Nov. 2021): 70.8% received at least 1 jab; 62.63% are twice jabbed; and 20.34% received their ‘booster’ jab.

Still, take a closer look at the trend (source: here).

The light green fields (‘erste Dosis’ = 1st jab) gives away the failure: the number of first jabs is apparently lower after 15 November—the day ‘the unvaccinated’ were placed under house arrest—than before.

If that’s not a quite telling indicator of policy failure, I don’t know.

Note that I’ve used the aggregator from the self-identifying as left-liberal daily Der Standard, which has a fun tool to quickly assess ‘vaccination’ uptake in a comparative way.

So, to answer the question about the ‘shamefully low’ (Schallenberg) ‘vaccine’ uptake, here’s some data (in ‘vaccine’ doses per 100 inhabitants):

Singapore: 184.89

Israel: 173.8

UK: 167.58

Sweden: 153.98

Covidistan: 153.78

Germany: 144.42

EU: 141,74

USA: 135.12

Switzerland: 133.88

You get the picture.

The next sessions of the Covidistan Committee of Public Safety will take place tomorrow and on Wednesday.

In the meantime, here’s Schallenberg again (from the above-reference ORF piece; my emphases):

‘Mandatory vaccination is scheduled to come into force in Austria on 1 February 2022. “Before that, everyone who has not been vaccinated will receive a notification asking them to do so. Those who do not do so by that date will have to pay a heavy fine. But for me it is the last resort”, said Schallenberg. In the week beginning 6 December, the corresponding draft legislation should be available, which should allow for a “proper assessment of at least four weeks” [You bet that I shall properly assess this monstrosity]. According to the Ministry of Health, the law could then enter into force at the beginning of February after the National Council [lower chamber] and the Federal Council [upper chamber] have passed corresponding resolutions.’

More absurdities and policy failures will certainly ensue.