Vaccination opponents in Austria: “It’s not a bit of a shitstorm”

Most Austrians accept the new compulsory vaccination law, but a small number of opponents and skeptics have become radicalized in recent weeks. Boundaries are being crossed more and more often.

Anyone who comes to the practice of Dr. Lisa-Maria Kellermayr in Seewalchen in Upper Austria has to pass a man dressed in black who is standing in the doorway with his legs apart. When his tattooed hands push his jacket aside, a weapon appears on his belt – not a blank gun, but a live weapon.

dr Kellermayr is a family doctor. In her practice she treats back pain, high blood pressure, infections – for a few months she has also been vaccinating against Covid-19 and has thus become a hate figure for those opposed to vaccination. The following threatening letter reached you on your e-mail address:

“Very specific threats”

On the day the news reached her, Kellermayr says she closed her practice – after all, she has a responsibility for employees and patients. And it’s about threats that can result in several years of imprisonment. That, according to Kellmayr, “is not a bit of a shitstorm, a bit of scolding on YouTube, ‘Fette Sau’ or anything else, these are very specific threats.”

Since compulsory vaccination was decided in Austria, the situation has worsened again, she says. A small but hard core of opponents of vaccination stubbornly refuses political measures. These people can no longer be reached and have withdrawn into their own world, where they are becoming increasingly radical.

This was particularly evident at the large-scale demonstrations in Vienna. Officially known neo-Nazis and identitarians like Martin Sellner mingled with the demonstrators. There were always escalations.

Children are also shouted at

About a week ago, a limit was crossed again during corona protests. A demo train in Linz turned directly at a daycare center. When the children looked curiously out of the window and the demonstrators saw their masks, there was a shout that the children should be freed from their masks.

Demo participants began photographing and filming the children. In an email from the sponsoring association to the parents, it is said that they were shocked and the children were “traumatized” by the incidents. A mother in front of the daycare seems stunned, one should leave her children alone in the future – what is happening here is “madness” and “beyond good and evil”.

Is the potential for violence perceived?

The list of incidents is getting longer and longer: A few weeks ago, a demonstration by opponents of vaccination besieged a hospital in Wels, doctors reported vandalism at the practice and punctured tyres. dr Kellermayr does not believe that the potential for violence that lies dormant here is sufficiently recognized and that suitable countermeasures are taken.

The state security recently published a list with information on possible protective measures for doctors, in which the installation of an alarm system and careful handling of postal items are recommended. With regard to hate crimes, the letter advises reporting immediately. That’s exactly what Kellermayr says she’s done on several occasions. But the death threat apparently came from the dark web. The actual sender cannot be identified.

The man has been employed by the security company in the family doctor’s practice since November – which means additional expenses of 16,000 euros for the doctor. Kellermayr pays for it out of his own pocket – as well as the other security measures that were necessary.

The doctor has now installed emergency buttons throughout the practice, and she has converted the server room into a panic room with security doors. She no longer moves unarmed, she always has a pepper spray in her pocket. When asked if she’s afraid when she goes to work in the morning, she pauses for a moment. “I don’t go to work anymore, I stay here in the practice on the couch.”

The “Europamagazin” showed this and other reports on January 30th, 2022.