WALBRZYCH, Poland — The mayor, a heart surgeon, had just finished overnight hospital duty when he received alarming news: a mob of protesters, some dressed in military camouflage, had gathered outside his home, screaming abuse through bullhorns and waving banners comparing him to Josef Mengele, the Nazi death camp physician. The small but menacing rally this month followed a decision a few days earlier by the elected council in Walbrzych, a former mining town in southwestern Poland, to declare that vaccination against the coronavirus was mandatory for all adult residents. That decision, the mayor, Dr. Roman Szelemej, said in an interview, reflected “the simple medical fact that vaccination is the only thing that can prevent this disease.” But instead of calming nerves, he lamented, “it made this small point on the map of Poland a place for all the skeptics of science and reality to focus on.”Wariness of coronavirus vaccines runs deep in Poland, particularly among younger people, with a survey by the University of Warsaw indicating that around 40 percent of the population is averse to getting inoculated. This is a lower level of skepticism than in France but still enough to make vaccines a rallying cause for a diverse and, Dr. Szelemej fears, growing minority who “live in a different reality” based on distrust of all scientific, moral and political authority.

Source: New York Times May 27, 2021 14:48 UTC