Czech singer Hana Horka dies after catching COVID-19 intentionally and avoiding vaccine
A Czech folk singer has died after she intentionally caught COVID-19 in lieu of getting vaccinated.
Hana Horka, 57, died two days after posting on social media that she had tested positive, her son, Jan Rek, told BBC News.
Rek said Horka wanted a recovery pass in order to get around certain COVID restrictions in the country.
He said his mother contracted the virus from either himself or his father after their recent infections, despite them being fully vaccinated, over Christmas.
“She should have isolated for a week because we tested positive. But she was with us the whole time,” he said.
The Czech Republic requires proof of vaccination or recent recovery from infection in order to enter bars or restaurants, movie theaters, concert venues and similar locations.
“Now there will be theatre, sauna, a concert,” Horka wrote on social media Friday after revealing her infection.
On Sunday, she was dead.
The Czech Republic is also seeing a sharp increase in cases fueled by the omicron variant with 28,469 cases reported despite a population of less than 11 million. The country is also several percentage points below the European Union average of about 70% fully vaccinated.
“If you have living examples from real life, it’s more powerful than just graphs and numbers,” Rek said, describing his mother’s death. “You can’t really sympathize with numbers.”
