I disagree with it, bit I still think an actual mandate is much more honest than eg Canada's defacto mandates where nobody forces you to get vaccinated but they force businesses to check vaccination on entry and make it so someone who doesn't want to provide medical information to every business they enter is excluded from daily life. At least a government mandate is honest about how totalitarian the government is
Every state has some rules about safety. Traffic, food production, health care and so one. These rules are in place because they are a good thing that creates order out of chaos, it makes things more predictable.
Does it make every government totalitarian?
I do not know if that move Austrian government made is a smart one but I certainly can understand the motivation behind it. I do not support their decision wholeheartedly but I'm not sure I should oppose it either.
We can argue at the moment that the situation has changed. Perhaps. But the main principle I described here remains.
It's sad but it seems Austria has totally lost its way. The vaccine mandate is only one part of it. In Austria corruption is everywhere - without good connections, business in Austria is pretty much impossible. For the past 4 years authoritarian parties were in power (currently the green and conservative party but both are authoritarian). Also, they plan crazy things like a crypto taxation that concerns transactions made in the past (so buys/sells that were done before the law becomes effective). It's pretty crazy what's going on there.
If you think about it, this isn't new but only a twist on an old law that was around for centuries. If you had leprosy you were forcibly isolated by law and sent to a leper colony that was isolated from the outside world.
The difference with this Austrian law is that the 'lepers' have a choice whether they remain 'lepers' or not.
It'll be interesting to see how this law pans out.
> That changes in mid-March, when the police are to start conducting random checks of vaccination status — including during traffic stops.