Austria imposed a controversial lockdown on roughly 2 million unvaccinated people Monday (Nov. 15), with federal police now randomly stopping people in public places to check their COVID-19 vaccination status.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said Tuesday that on Monday alone, at least 15,000 random police checks were carried out across Austria and roughly “120 violations were found and punished.”
Unvaccinated Austrians over the age of 12 who breach the lockdown face fines of up to 500 euros ($567), and anyone who refuses to comply with the random police checks may be fined triple that.
Austria’s third-biggest political party, the Freedom Party, called the lockdown of unvaccinated people “a corona apartheid system” and is hosting a protest in Vienna on Saturday (Nov. 20), where children older than six now must show a negative SARS-CoV-2 test result to be permitted entry into many public places.
