A Czech folk singer has died after she intentionally contracted COVID-19 in an effort to allow herself more freedom.
Hana Horká, 57, was the vocalist for the band Asonance. She refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Instead, reports The Guardian, she voluntarily exposed herself to her vaccinated husband and son, who both caught the virus before Christmas.
“She decided to continue to live normally with us and preferred to catch the disease than to get vaccinated,” her son, Jan Rek, told public radio iRozhlas.cz this week.
The Czech Republic requires proof of vaccination or recent infection to enter many venues, including those where Horká’s band performed.
Her son said she thought that getting infected would allow her to be back performing with her band, and allow her more freedom to move around in society.
According to the BBC, two days before her death she posted on social media that she had picked up the virus but was recovering.
“Now there will be theatre, sauna, a concert… and an urgent trip to the sea,” she wrote.
On Sunday, the day of her death, her son said she had been out on a walk when her back started to hurt. When she returned home she decided to lie down for a bit.
“In about 10 minutes it was all over,” her son said. “She choked to death.”
Rek told iRozhlas.cz that his mother was not a conspiracy theorist, but that she had been listening to leaders of the anti-vaccination movement and her decision not to get inoculated was influenced by people spreading misinformation.
“I know exactly who influenced her… It makes me sad that she believed strangers more than her proper family,” Rek said.
“It wasn’t just total disinformation but also views on natural immunity and antibodies acquired through infection.”
Rek said anyone who convinces another person not to get vaccinated has “blood on their hands.”
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