Called "Horrible Monkey": Dutch Scientists Tackling Covid Get Threats

Several members of a group of scientists that advises the Dutch government on managing the Covid-19 pandemic have received threats, local media reported Friday.

Multiple experts on the OMT scientific committee found threatening letters had been left in their letterboxes at home, according to news website Nu.nl.

Committee member Andreas Voss told the site he had been called a "horrible monkey" and told to "go back to Germany" in a note addressed to him.

Another OMT expert, Diederik Gommers, said that one of his colleagues was under police protection after "serious threats".

Other members of the committee told Nu.nl they had been so unsettled by the threats that they are now reluctant to speak to the media about Covid-19.

A spokesman for the RIVM public health body, where the committee is based, declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Groups opposed to infection control restrictions have demonstrated across the Netherlands since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

But no link has been established between the protesters and the threats against the expert committee, and none of the members has spoken about the possible source of the threats.

In October, the Dutch anti-terrorism chief published a document warning of potential violence resulting from a "combination of extremist ideology, possible psycho-social and psychological problems and measures related to Covid-19".

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