Austria abandons its sweeping vaccine mandate, citing milder Omicron symptoms.

[Celerity]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/09/world/covid-19-mandates-cases-vaccine/austria-abandons-its-sweeping-vaccine-mandate-citing-milder-omicron-symptoms



Four months ago, Austria made headlines when it announced plans to become the first Western democracy to impose a general vaccine mandate to fight the coronavirus, a measure that would have hit adults who refused to be inoculated with fines of up to 3,600 euros (about $4,000).

That was a different time, one before the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus became seemingly omnipresent.

Calling the law “not proportionate” given the relatively mild symptoms experienced by most people with the variant, Karoline Edtstadler, the minister responsible for Austria’s constitutional affairs, said the country was doing a U-turn on its policy.

The mandate for Austria, where about 74 percent of the population has received at least two doses, officially took effect early last month, but enforcement was not scheduled to begin until next Tuesday.

snip

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. man, this is fucking stupid.

THIS is why this is fucking stupid:

During at least the first few months following a coronavirus infection, even mild cases of Covid-19 are associated with subtle tissue damage and accelerated losses in brain regions tied to the sense of smell, as well as a small loss in the brain’s overall volume, a new British study finds. Having mild Covid is also associated with a cognitive function deficit.

These are the striking findings of the new study led by University of Oxford investigators, one that leading Covid researchers consider particularly important because it is the first study of the disease’s potential impact on the brain that is based on brain scans taken both before and after participants contracted the coronavirus.

The research, which was published Monday in Nature, also stands out because the lion’s share of its participants apparently had mild Covid — by far, the most common outcome of coronavirus infections. Most of the brain-related studies in this field have focused on those with moderate to severe Covid.


https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/long-covid-even-mild-covid-linked-damage-brain-months-infection-rcna18959

[Celerity]

2. That study was completed long before Omicron (either BA.1 or BA.2) existed, let alone became the

dominant strain.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5_reference.pdf



also (from the study itself)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5

It remains unknown however whether the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection can be detected in milder cases, and whether this can reveal possible mechanisms contributing to brain pathology.