Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Austria took perhaps the most dramatic COVID-19-related action by implementing a nationwide lockdown for all unvaccinated people on Monday, certainly the toughest of such measures in Europe. All people aged 12 or older who haven't been vaccinated or have recently recovered from a COVID-19 infection are now barred from leaving their homes except for basic activities.

The lockdown will be imposed until November 24, with police getting the green light from officials to step up their presence and issue fines of up to 1,450 euros ($1,660) for violations.

This approach to addressing vaccine refusers was taken because Austria, like many other countries in Europe, is experiencing a huge surge in cases as the winter months loom. Still, critics, both domestic and foreign, are calling foul on the Austrian government for violating civil liberties.

However, this criticism is plain nonsense. Austria's tough stance on vaccination is entirely consistent with the core tenets of liberalism, namely the "harm principle," which has been central to the concept of civil liberties for hundreds of years.

In the first chapter of "On Liberty," philosopher John Stuart Mill argues, "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

Likewise, France's "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789," one of the most influential Enlightenment-era documents that helped philosophers in Europe and around the world develop the concept of civil liberty, includes a similar phrase.

"Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law," it reads.

Austria's decision to restrict the movement of the unvaccinated when COVID-19 cases are rising at an alarming rate falls within the limits of the harm principle as described by classical liberal thinkers. This is because refusing to get vaccinated harms other people, and there are a few reasons for this.

First, we know that getting vaccinated limits transmission. Emerging data suggests that the current COVID-19 vaccines are indeed losing effectiveness against preventing infection from emerging variants, and they also lose this effectiveness over time, but they limit patients' disease severity, including the duration of disease.

This means that patients are contagious for a shorter amount of time even if they have a breakthrough infection, limiting the chance of spread to others. By not getting the vaccine, vaccine refusers increase the likelihood of spreading the disease to others should they get infected.

Second, the vaccines are highly effective at keeping people out of the hospitals – as they were designed to do. The hospitalization difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated is massive, with the majority of those in hospitals unvaccinated.

This means that the unvaccinated in many countries are on course to swell up hospitals again, forcing hospitals to have to cancel non-emergency procedures or invoke triage. It will have serious consequences for non-COVID-19 patients, for example, if vaccine refusers clog up much-needed medical resources.

Skeptics will insist that their vaccination status is a personal choice – but it's not. It is a decision that fundamentally affects everyone in society, including their own community and household, because choosing not to be vaccinated means choosing to endanger oneself and, crucially, others.

Society as a whole has the legitimate right to exclude people who refuse to not harm others through their irresponsible and irrational choices. In doing so, governments like Austria that are taking bold steps to reduce harm are not violating civil liberties at all, but are, in fact, protecting civil liberties. That's because, by refusing vaccination and choosing to go in public, others' civil liberties are violated.

Potentially exposing people to a deadly pathogen without their consent is a textbook violation of a person's personal autonomy, and legal systems around the world have recognized this going back well before the ongoing pandemic. Austria's lockdown policy is rooted in this exact same reasoning, which is itself based on Enlightenment ideals about civil liberty.

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