Czechia – On the eve of the Austrian parliament’s approval of their government’s plan to introduce mandatory vaccination of all adults as of February 1, despite opposition from a large part of the population, Czechia chose to head the opposite way. On Wednesday, 19 January, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) announced that he had amended the decree that Andrej Babiš’ outgoing government had issued just before leaving office, which made vaccination mandatory for people over 60 and for certain professions as of 1 March.
Compulsory vaccination would further divide society
“Covid-19 vaccination will not be mandatory (…). We do not see reasons for mandatory vaccination”,
he explained at a press conference, saying that his government does not want to further divide society over the issue of vaccination.
Czech Health Minister Vlastimil Válek (TOP09) clearly agrees with this decision, as he said just after the PM’s announcement: “The vaccine mandate will no longer be in the decree. I have fulfilled my promise.”
I considered mandatory Covid-19 vaccination nonsense from the beginning. I promised that we would amend the previous government’s decree [and that] we would cancel mandatory vaccination. It happened today.
Although vaccination is the most effective weapon against severe forms of the disease, we will not force anyone to receive it”, the health minister wrote on Twitter.
