Restrictions for the Unvaccinated Increase Vaccine Willingness

He adds that the subsequent lockdown for the unvaccinated on November 15 made no significant difference to the trend toward greater acceptance of vaccinations. Indeed, the announcement of a general lockdown, which has applied in Austria since November 22, has reversed this trend slightly, he says. “Restrictions specifically for vaccine skeptics therefore appear to increase the willingness to get vaccinated more than a lockdown for all,” says Hannes Winner, Professor of Economics at the University of Salzburg and co-author of the study.

The survey covered the period from October 4 to December 4, 2021. At the start of this period, the vaccination rate in the Austrian border districts was 61.1 percent, while the German districts on the other side of the border had a rate of 57.2 percent (a difference of 3.9 percentage points). On December 4, these figures had increased to 68 percent and 61 percent respectively, with the difference rising to 7 percentage points. The survey evaluated data about first vaccinations in 13 German and 16 Austrian districts along the German-Austrian border.