Greater than 40,000 folks marched by Vienna on Saturday (December 4) to protest towards a lockdown and plans to make vaccinations obligatory to curb the coronavirus pandemic.
Confronted with surging every day infections, the federal government final month made Austria the primary nation in Western Europe to reimpose a lockdown and mentioned it will make vaccinations necessary from February.
Folks carried indicators saying: “My physique my alternative”, “Make Austria Nice Once more” and “New Elections” – a nod to the political turmoil that has seen three chancellors inside two months – as crowds gathered.
Round 1,200 cops deployed to deal with scattered protests that had been speculated to merge right into a march on the Ring boulevard in central Vienna.
Police mentioned they’d remind marchers to put on masks and cost individuals who don’t.
A parliamentary committee this week accredited doubling the size of the lockdown to twenty days, which the federal government has mentioned is the longest it can final.
Austria, a rustic of 8.9 million folks, has reported almost 1.2 million coronavirus instances and greater than 12,000 COVID-19 linked deaths because the pandemic started final 12 months.
New instances have been falling because the lockdown – which makes exceptions for protests – started.