NewsOut of distrust of the vaccination: man is looking...

Out of distrust of the vaccination: man is looking for corona infection on Telegram

Unvaccinated people are looking for a way to get infected with corona on Instagram. Critical voices from politics can even imagine a ban on the app.

Hamburg / Kassel – Although several corona vaccines * have been approved in Germany for around a year, millions of people have not yet been vaccinated against Covid-19. One of them is Martin, a young man who purposely contracted the potentially deadly virus. For him the “smartest solution”, it says in a report from faz.net.

Martin does not trust politics, nor the official case numbers of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). There have been “other lies in politics”. “Alternative information” from various Telegram channels, which are teeming with conspiracy theories, make more sense to him.

Corona infection wanted on Telegram: Hamburger distrusts statements from mayor

According to the report by faz.net, the 32-year-old was a sociable person before the corona pandemic, has a small child and works in an authority. But the many measures make his life as an unvaccinated more and more difficult. When a comprehensive 2G regulation was introduced, he got “really scared”. Instead of dealing with the vaccination again, Martin started thinking in the opposite direction due to an incident in Hamburg.

In mid-November 2021, Peter Tschentscher, First Mayor of Hamburg, said that 90 percent of all new infections came from people without full vaccination protection. About a month later Tschentscher corrected himself and explained that the vaccination status of almost 63 percent of those infected was not entirely clear, but that they were counted among the unvaccinated. He regretted the “uncertainty”, but Martin suspected that it was purely intentional.

A vaccination was off the table for Martin, but what solution did he have? He found a forged vaccination certificate “morally unjustifiable” and he also did not want to be seen as a vaccinated person. A friend then told him that he had bought a fake positive PCR test from Telegram and has since been considered recovered. But Martin didn’t want to go along with this lie either, which is why, in his opinion, only one thing remained: an intentional infection with Covid-19.

Corona infection thanks to Telegram: “Bring the sick”

On the messenger app Telegram, Martin found a group in which like-minded people are also looking for people infected with corona. Specific inquiries can be found between friendly conversations and users with AfD masks as a profile picture: “Have high levels of vitamin C and D in my blood. So, bring the sick … 😉 “writes a man in his late 50s. He was” third best in his university year “and only sticks to the facts. When his wife came from the vaccination center, he had a stomachache shortly afterwards. The man believes that this can be seen “as a vaccine reaction to the spike proteins she exhales”.

When someone from Switzerland reports a daily positive test, user “Timur” asks for a meeting. When he receives a cotton swab “in a remote place”, which the infected person previously had in his nose, he rubs it into his nostril as well. It is unclear to him whether that is enough. He does not follow someone else’s tip to insert the chopstick anally. A later PCR test comes back positive, then “Timur” offers an infection itself. “Thank you for thinking of the group, writes one user.

Man is looking for corona infection – and finds it on Telegram

Martin finally found what he was looking for in a woman on Telegram, reports faz.net. She wrote to the hamburger that he could visit an infected friend of hers and drink from the same glass with him. A week after the meeting, Martin’s friends contacted him saying they were all positive and the symptoms were mild. Before that, they met on several days. They then isolated themselves “out of respect for other people”.

But Martin’s corona tests remained negative. Thereupon he arranged a PCR test and shortly before wiping his nose with a handkerchief of his girlfriend who tested positive – this time the test was positive, Martin was “totally relieved”. The first symptoms followed a few days later.

App before ban? Telegram popular among right-wing extremists and corona deniers

Telegram is a popular messenger, especially among right-wing extremists and corona deniers. The company is based in the United Arab Emirates and, unlike Whatsapp and Co., does not feel it has an obligation to intervene in cases of hatred and agitation. It is also unclear where the Telegram servers are located. Therefore, fake news, calls for mobilization, and even death threats can easily be shared on a large scale. No wonder that politicians are already thinking out loud about a possible ban on the app.

“Supporters of the constitutional protection-relevant corona denier scene in particular use the platform to spread their own agenda and to mobilize for demonstrations and events,” the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution told the German Press Agency (dpa).

The new Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) declared in December 2021 in the ARD Tagesthemen that one had to think about all possibilities – including restrictions for the messenger or even a ban. Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) also found clear words in an interview with ZDF: “There is advertising for demonstrations, there is also calls for violence, and addresses are published by politicians. So, action has to be taken here ”. (Nail Akkoyun) * hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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