On a street of shops in the Austrian city of Linz, a stone’s throw from the winding Danube river, two police officers in navy-blue uniforms and peaked white caps stop random passersby to check their vaccine passports.
Elderly shoppers rummage around in their handbags and comply with a smile, but a fortysomething woman with a nose piercing is less forthcoming: she says she left her immunisation certificate on the kitchen table as she had to dash across town to see a dentist.
When the woman fails to provide proof of her medical appointment, the officers ask her to head home, though they decline to take down details. “This is a state of complete madness,” she says as she continues on her original northward journey.
Since Monday, about 2 million
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