Is the suicide of the Austrian vaccinator Lisa-Maria Kellermayr after massive threats from vaccination opponents also a warning signal for us in Germany?

Anna Lena Ripperger

Editor in Politics.

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Unfortunately, the terrible threats that Ms. Kellermayr received both digitally and analogously and the poor handling of them are part of an inadequate handling of the overall threat situation in the pandemic.

You can look at a lot of groups here in Germany.

There were protests in front of clinics, there were attacks on health workers, vaccination centers or mobile vaccination teams that could only work under police protection.

Politicians and journalists have been threatened, as have retail workers.

The terrible murder of the student and gas station employee in Idar-Oberstein took place.

All of these cases have never been taken seriously in their entirety in the last two and a half years.

This created a social atmosphere that I find very threatening.

How threatening?

Right now you have the feeling that things have become very quiet around the "lateral thinkers" and anti-vaccination scene.

Even if the protests are less visible, they are still there.

The threats go far beyond that.

Social coexistence is endangered by a not particularly large group, which unfortunately manages to have more influence than it should and should be through a mixture of ignoring, looking the other way and giving space.

There was a survey last year with the result that half would no longer point out corona measures because they were afraid of the threat.

A COSMO study came to the conclusion that 12.5 percent of people who work in occupations in which they refer to the measures have experienced violence.

I find that frightening.

The Federal Criminal Police Office now records crimes related to the pandemic separately.

Isn't that a good prerequisite for a coherent consideration?

There are many crimes in the pandemic that are not classified as politically attributable, such as the murder in Idar-Oberstein.

And if the right motivation behind it is not named correctly, that is of course a problem.

But the anti-vaccination scene is actually very heterogeneous.

Whenever there is a mobilization that is apparently more right-wing populist, the potential danger is not taken seriously.

Then there are debates about whether these are not just the fears and worries of “ordinary citizens”.

Because the whole thing doesn't clearly look like a right-wing extremist protest, its dangerousness is not recognized.

And while society is still discussing, anti-democratic spaces can develop.

You saw that with Pegida and now also with Corona.

Unfortunately, there has been no learning effect so far.

Ms. Kellermayr carried out corona vaccinations in her practice and thus supported the state vaccination campaign.

Observers criticized that the state she served left her alone when she needed protection.

It has not only been the case since the pandemic that democratically committed people are often left alone with threats, that their plight is not taken so seriously and they are sometimes even blamed.

So it shouldn't be surprising if more and more people are withdrawing.

I suspect that a Christian Drosten would not expose himself like this again if there was another pandemic, which I hope does not happen.

And it's not just about the prominent faces: when you consider that people in supermarkets, gas stations or pubs suddenly had to make sure that measures were followed without ever having had any training - I find that difficult.

Or that you often have to pay for it privately,