From Boris Johnson to Emmanuel Macron, Europe’s leaders are increasingly going after anti-vaxxers as the battle against the fast-spreading omicron variant deepens the region’s pandemic fatigue.
Amid a seemingly unstoppable surge in infections, officials are focusing restrictions on unvaccinated people rather than resorting to widespread clampdowns. The strong overall uptake in inoculations has emboldened leaders to go more aggressively after the holdouts, prodding them to roll up their sleeves.
French President Macron took the rhetoric to a new level this week when he said his government’s strategy was to "piss off” those who have refused shots. In the U.K., Johnson accused anti-vaxxers of spreading "nonsense.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who supports making shots compulsory, has labeled the anti-vax movement "a tiny minority of reckless extremists.”