Austria powered down public life on Monday as its fourth national COVID-19 lockdown began, making it the first western European country to reimpose the drastic and unpopular measure this autumn in the face of surging coronavirus infections.
The lockdown is the first introduced since vaccines became widely available. Most places people gather, like restaurants and bars, cannot open their doors for 10 days initially and maybe as many as 20, the government says. Read more: ‘My body, my choice’: Thousands protest ahead of Austria’s COVID-19 lockdown Christmas markets, a big draw for tourists that had only just begun to open, also shut but, in a last-minute change, ski lifts remained open to the vaccinated.