Virologist Melanie Brinkmann sounded the corona alarm early on and earned hatred for it: “We will get your children”

Created: 05/07/2022, 09:40 am

By: Stella Henrich

Melanie Brinkmann speaks plainly in the media and keeps commenting on the current Corona situation.

But the scientist had not expected so much hatred of her clear words.

Munich – The way to the public came suddenly for Melanie Brinkmann.

Suddenly there was great interest in her virological expertise on the subject of Corona.

She has received enormous attention mainly through her TV appearances on talk shows in the past few months during the pandemic.

This was also the case in the summer of 2020 when she sat down with Markus Lanz in the round of talk guests and spoke about vaccines against corona, herd immunity and the Mumbai study.

At that time, people were still very insecure.

"I wanted to help to classify what was happening and to get the pandemic under control," Brinkmann now summarizes in the

.

However, the fact that going public could throw her into troubled waters, "I didn't think about it at the time," says the researcher today.

Corona pandemic: Researcher is labeled as a scaremonger

In the summer of 2020, the 48-year-old faced headwind for the first time.

At that time, Germany had left the first corona wave behind with comparatively fewer deaths.

The incidences were low, many people were full of hope, already thinking: that's it, the danger is over.

There was no more room for bad news.

At this point, virologist Brinkmann dampened this hope.

In an interview with the news magazine

in June 2020, she said that although things were quiet at the moment, the incidence of infection would very likely pick up speed again in the autumn.

The readers' response was not long in coming.

She is a "panic".

Melanie Brinkmann, 46, is a virologist at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig.

© imago

Corona pandemic: Scientist is massively attacked

Virologist Brinkmann felt threatened for the first time after the

Zeitung reported on her and published an article with the headline "The most radical voice in Merkel's team" with a photo of her.

She was then massively attacked, both on Twitter and by email.

At a time when many experts had now spoken publicly.

At the time, Brinkmann was concerned with optimizing contact tracing;

she also wanted to increase the test frequency and expressed this in understandable words.

In the Maybrit Illner talk show, she said the sentence "The infection dynamics don't care about the vaccination," and caused a stir.

Brinkmann thus underscored her thesis that boosters protect against severe courses in most cases, but not against infection.

I keep all emails - they are a testimony of this time."

Virologist Melanie Brinkmann

Corona statements: Researcher receives hate comments

What happened next goes beyond the bounds of good taste.

She had to listen to comments like "Brinkmann-Bitch" about crawling into a shithole she came out of.

Not only they, but also their children were threatened.

"We will get your children." Another wanted to build a guillotine for her and her family.

When someone then called for burning her as a witch, the red line was reached for the scientists.

She no longer wanted to go out in public to protect her soul.

In the meantime they have reached around 4000 mails.

She has created a folder with "fan mail", not everyone is outrageous and full of hate.

She also collects friendly emails with smart questions.

And she wants to keep all emails, because "they are a testament to that time," says Brinkmann.