Austria mourns suicide of physician targetted by anti-vaccine campaigners

Austrian leaders appealed for nationwide unity after a physician who confronted demise threats from anti-vaccination activists and coronavirus pandemic conspiracy theorists took her personal life.

“Let’s put an end to this intimidation and fear mongering. Hate and intolerance have no place in our Austria,” President Alexander Van der Bellen mentioned, hailing Lisa-Maria Kellermayr as a physician who stood for therapeutic folks, defending them from illness and taking a cautious strategy to the pandemic.

“But some people have been enraged by this. And these people scared her, threatened her, first on the internet and then also in person, directly in her practice.”

The physique of the physician — who had usually given media interviews about combating the coronavirus pandemic and selling vaccinations — was present in her workplace in Upper Austria on Friday.

Media cited prosecutors as saying that they had discovered a suicide word and weren’t planning an post-mortem.

Austria final month dropped plans to introduce obligatory COVID-19 vaccination for adults, saying it was unlikely that the measure would elevate one in every of western Europe’s lowest vaccination charges.

Tens of hundreds of individuals had marched in common protests in opposition to lockdowns final yr and plans to make vaccinations obligatory, highlighting a social divide over public well being measures that many international locations have skilled.

But the physician’s demise — which the Austrian physicians’ affiliation mentioned mirrored a broader pattern of threats in opposition to medical workers — shocked the nation.

“Hatred against people is inexcusable. This hatred must finally stop,” Health Minister Johannes Rauch mentioned.