Austria-watch: that Impfplicht (vaccine mandate) letter

Some time in January or February, I got the letter from the Austrian government about the vaccination mandate.  Scan of this letter is at [0].

[0] <http://republish.coulddobetter.at/2022-02.bundesregierung.impfpflicht.scan.pdf>

The Austrian government does half publish it online, in PDF, which is a print format.  They do not publish it in a web format or in any semantic document format, unless the semantics are "here's a rendering for A4 paper".  It's a sad comment on the web's failure that no one thinks to publish the actual document using a web format.  The web is just used for talking about and linking to the document, not for the actual document.  The actual document is in PDF.  Watch out, I'm going emit a DOCUMENT!  So it must be in pdf, rendered for print!  Fucksake.

I converted it into simple html at [1].  The idea with republish.coulddobetter.at, currently nascent, is to format-shift / mark-up published documents from whatever they're published in, usually PDF, to basic html5.

[1] <http://republish.coulddobetter.at/2022-02.bundesregierung.impfpflicht.scan.html>

The government also published an English (among other languages) version [2], and again I've marked it up to basic html [3].

[2] <http://republish.coulddobetter.at/2022-02.bundesregierung.mandatory_vaccination.pdf>

[3] <http://republish.coulddobetter.at/2022-02.bundesregierung.mandatory_vaccination.html>

What to make of this communication?

To set the scene, the vaccine mandate was and remains, of course, morally indefensible.  It is authoritarian overreach.  Vaccination must remain an individual decision, taken in conjunction with individualised health-care advice.  It's a serious mistake by the Austrian state.

The letter repeats a mistake I also saw at the border, of thinking only in terms of vaccines, even for recovered people who will tend to have excellent natural immunity, better than that vaccines, and longer lasting.  I had shown the border guard (Vienna) my recovered certificate.  He had insisted on looking at my old vaccination certificate, which was 2 shots.  He explained that the recovery was a booster.  No.  No, dipshit, no it's not.  The recovery, from a month before, is the main thing.  It's not a booster for jack shit.  The vaccinations, from 8 months before, were by this point irrelevant.  There's a time and place for arguing such things, and entry to a country when they're all being twitchy (this was late December 2021) is not one of them.

In the letter, it's written as "The vaccination certificate for the booster vaccination (3 vaccine doses or recovery + 2 vaccine doses) will continue to be valid for 270 days".  That is how recovery is talked about.  As being like a booster of the vaccine.  This is wrong.  Recovery is its own category, and may or may not be "boosted" by a vaccine shot.  And for people who had no vaccine, then caught the bug and recovered?  It looks like they still have to get 2 vaccine shots before they are re-personed, even tho they'll have great natural immunity from their recovery.  This is extremely stupid.

The Austrians had plenty of time to fix their public policy during the Omicron phase, and they failed.

My understanding of the protections given by vaccines and natural immunity for different strains, generalising bigly, is:

Vaccines don't reduce chance of infection / transmission for Omicron, but do reduce chances of severe case.  Against previous variants, the vaccines may reduce chance of infection / transmission.

Natural immunity from Omicron does reduce chance of infection / transmission of both Omicron and previous variants.  It gives good protection against severe cases of both Omicron and previous variants.

Natural immunity from previous variants does not reduce chance of infection / transmission of Omicron, but does against previous variants.  Gives protection against severe cases of previous variants.  Not sure about protection against severe cases of Omicron.

In Omicron times, there is no social argument for vaccination in terms of infecting others, then.  In fairness, the letter does not make this argument.  It says "The vaccine protects each and every individual, it saves our hospitals from collapsing. The population needs a functioning healthcare system to rely on, especially in times of a health crisis."  The social argument in the letter is in terms of healthcare overwhelm.  It's just not relevant in Omicron times, as Omicron is so mild, but that's the argument it makes.

The letter says "[higher vaccination coverage] is the only way for us to successfully contain the coronavirus pandemic and to regain our accustomed liberties."  This is obvious bollocks.  At this stage of the thing, another way is to just move on like the Danes, the Brits, the South Africans, and all the other ones.  For a letter lacking overt threats, there's a nice little passive threat in there about whatever it is being the "only" was to "regain liberties".  Do-as-you're-told makes free, or something.

The only explicit threat is "Any person who fails to comply with the statutory requirement to get vaccinated will have to expect administrative penalties in future".  I would have preferred more specific information about the punish.  Is it a recurring quarterly fine that never escalates, like I was somewhere?  It may be possible to budget for that.  People have been making a big thing out of people who don't pay their fines going to prison.  Presumably this is true for any non-payment of an administrative penalty.  This letter seems to make it clear that the vaccine mandate is being implemented in civil / administrative law, not in the criminal law.

The law is now "suspended", another mistake.  Having made this big mistake, just scrap it.  So it will probably be back next winter.  Austrians have shown themselves woefully unable to adapt to Omicron circumstances, meaning, move on from the whole thing.  Yesterday, the train conductor was STILL correcting people for only putting on masks when he entered the carriage.