ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the chronology as well as the cause-and-effect of the evolution of the rule of law, state power, public health, and popular will in Austria. While some European Union (EU) states had enacted vaccine mandates for older residents, and other European countries required COVID-19 vaccines of health-care workers, Austria's more-or-less universal Impfpflicht for adults represented a new milestone in the EU amid the crises of the twenty-first century. In parliament as well as in the new and old media, the most prominent objectors to the vaccine mandate hailed from the populist nationalist-right Freedom Party of Austria. Starting in 2009, Austria faced its own share of the sovereign debt misery or eurozone crisis. Despite the Sturm, Drang, and sordid scandal of the last decade or so, Austria's Sozialstaat is neither down nor out. © 2023 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.