The rationale behind the lockdown is that it will increase the level of vaccination (low for a Western European country at 65%) but even supporters of the move predict that it will be followed up by more universal measures soon enough. Covid levels per capita have shot up in recent weeks, and Austria now has one of the highest case rates in Europe. What is striking is that very few think the policy will actually work. One man simply describes the latest lockdown as “bullshit”. Only a few voices take the opposing view, and they tend to be passers-through more than the wealthy locals the doormen and deliverymen we try to talk to just shake their heads. Her view is typical - there is very little sympathy here, and a good deal of frustration. All the trouble we have is due to those people that believe in, I don’t know, that the earth is flat… If the majority of society depends on idiots, then they can’t be helped and it’s the end of society!” “I think it comes much too late,” says one woman. Affluent shoppers are out and about in the crisp November air, and they are more than happy to share their views with us.
It’s a “brain fuck”, says Mia’s partner, Christopherīack in the old town, alongside the fancy boutiques of the Kärntner Straße, it’s a very different world. What will the future look like? He is supposed to be performing in Paris before Christmas who knows if he will get there. “I don’t want to be dependent on these kind of things to be happy.” But the sense of alienation and unease is palpable.
UNHERD AUSTRIA TV
Attempting to remain philosophical about it, he explains how he tries to tune out the relentless fear coming out of the TV and keep control of his own mental state. So, for now at least, she is allowed out and about. The Brazilian-born Mia has already had Covid and, in the Austrian “2G” system, proof of recovery affords you the same status as if you had been vaccinated - albeit for a period of six months. Mia is an artist who is unvaccinated but allowed out because she had covid recently. But to place a minority of the population under partial house arrest does seem to cross a new line.
It is, essentially, a ratcheting up of the regime of vaccine passports that exists already in many countries across Europe, whereby unvaccinated people are already excluded from restaurants, museums and theatres. “Every citizen should know that they will be checked by the police.” “It is not a recommendation, but an order,” announced the Interior Minister Karl Nehammer at a press conference. It was introduced in response to rapidly rising cases and a lack of excess capacity in Austrian hospitals. Since Monday, unvaccinated Austrians are not allowed to leave their homes except to go to work, to buy essential supplies, or to take exercise: it’s the world’s first “lockdown for the unvaccinated”. But they carefully explain how, for reasons of mistrust, caution and, as they see it, integrity, they have decided not to take the Covid vaccine - and how this fact is suddenly defining their whole lives. When I meet them at their house in a wooded suburb outside Vienna, I am almost embarrassed to ask about it. Perhaps the least interesting thing about this talented young couple is that they are unvaccinated against Covid-19. From their home in Vienna, accompanied by their dog, Magic, they go off to take part in theatrical shows large and small around Europe, from the Royal Albert Hall to private parties, sometimes juggling fire, sometimes trapeze, sometimes simply with stunning displays of balance and strength. Mia and Christopher are Austrian circus performers.