In spring and summer 2020, Dr. med. univ. Peer Eifler received over 20,000 emails from people asking for a certificate exempting them from the mask mandate. From this body he assembled 291 verbatim quotations – 46 of them are documented here in anonymized form.
The quotations show the distress in which patients, parents and children found themselves. Individual details that might have allowed identification of specific persons have been removed. The excerpts have only been lightly condensed; their substance remains.
I am a father who loves his children. My sons, 14 and 9 years old, get a feeling of tightness and panic attacks when they have the mask on their face. Please issue us a certificate that for health reasons no mask can be worn.
This is about my seven-year-old daughter. She suffers from shortness of breath, panic attacks and headaches. For the last few days my child has not been going to school because she has stomach cramps and nightmares because of the situation.
Our little daughter is starting school this year. She has just turned six and doesn't understand why people wear masks. When saying goodbye at kindergarten she cried so bitterly that I eventually kept her at home.
My son had to go on a hike with a mask at 35 °C – downhill and one kilometre uphill. He sees stars, has dizzy spells, comes home crying and says he no longer wants to live. He is eleven.
My eldest son (13) reacts very sensitively to his environment and has great difficulty with the mask mandate. Today I asked his teacher by text message to let him wear the mask under his nose during cookery class so that he could get some air – to no avail.
My daughter, six years old, has a pollen and grass allergy and is burdened enough with that. With a mask it is only worse.
L., eight years old, primary school pupil. Fear that Corona will never go away (almost daily topic). Social life and leisure activities severely restricted. Often sad. Easily moved to tears.
V., 16 years old, in vocational training: hyperventilation at work, gets short of breath, headaches, hot flushes. Had a fainting episode at home and fell on the stairs. Wears the mask about six hours a day.
Both my children, 16 and 18 years old, both in the upper years of grammar school, were forced to spend the whole day wearing a mask. My daughter had ten hours of school. She came home with dizziness, headaches, exhaustion. I am so angry.
My daughter is in her first year of training as a hairdresser and is required to wear a mask ten hours a day. She is constantly dizzy and suffers greatly from it.
Because of my breathing problems I am allowed to shop without a mask – yet I still have to justify myself constantly. It is very sad that in 2020 one has to have courage to tell the truth.
I am an asthmatic and just at the thought of having to wear a mask I get breathing difficulties and panic attacks.
Almost 40 years ago I had a serious accident in which many of my facial bones from the nose to the forehead were shattered, including the olfactory bulb. Over the past three years I have been operated on the nose twice. My breathing has only improved minimally as a result.
Status post mechanical aortic valve replacement due to high-grade aortic stenosis. When wearing these protective masks I experience oxygen deprivation and panic attacks.
I have already collapsed twice due to circulatory problems and was admitted to hospital because of very low blood pressure. I asked my GP for a mask certificate. He refused. I am truly desperate.
My GP refuses to issue me a certificate despite my heart failure and breathing difficulties, which is why I went looking for alternatives on the internet.
I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and repeated panic attacks and circulatory problems. When I wear these masks I get shortness of breath and my throat closes up. The doctors around here refuse, as a matter of policy, to issue any more certificates. I was dismissed on the phone.
I have been blind since birth, and wearing the mask makes me feel even more cut off; breathing is also difficult for me.
I have had a hearing impairment for years and a 60 percent disability. I wear hearing aids. For me this whole mask situation is dreadful – I understand nothing and feel utterly limited and lost.
My symptoms are shortness of breath, dizziness, even panic attacks when wearing the mask. As a young woman I also had a terrible experience in which I was strangled. Since then I cannot wear anything over my nose or close to my throat.
I suffer from severe claustrophobia. When I have to pull the mask over my nose I break out in sweat, panic, and feel I am no longer getting any air.
I am on disability pension due to ADHD, seasonal depression and a personality disorder. It is impossible for me to wear the mask. Dizziness sends me into panic, and seeing only people staring at me, I am very afraid.
I have several diagnoses, in particular complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Wearing a face mask repeatedly triggers severe flashbacks and states of anxiety.
I receive a partial disability pension because of trauma and anxiety disorder after the suicide of my beloved son.
Despite a medical certificate stating that I am not allowed to wear a mask, I was already turned away from a grocery store and from a dental practice. My daughter, then nine years old, had to wait alone in the waiting room.
Wearing a mask for longer periods makes my breathing worse. I become restless. The worst is the psychological strain. At one point I had severely elevated inflammation values after a blood test, because the whole thing is pulling me down mentally.
I have five years of anxiety disorders behind me, including suicide attempts. Since 2014 I have been doing very well – I have finally dared to stop all medication. I do not want to go along with this mask mandate.
Last Friday I was almost thrown out of the supermarket. I really could not breathe with the mask and told that to the staff. At the checkout a security officer planted himself in front of me, stood his ground and refused to let me pay. In front of everyone I had a complete breakdown.
My husband had to take over every errand outside the home – shopping, official appointments. I don't even dare to go to the bakery or the supermarket because of the mask and I am completely dependent on neighbours.
Symptoms: shortness of breath, dizziness, mucus production, skin redness, headaches, nausea, heart palpitations, incipient hypercapnia under exertion. I think that should be enough.
I experience shortness of breath, dizziness, circulatory problems, panic attacks. All of these complaints occur with every kind of mouth-and-nose covering, including so-called face shields.
I am a professional firefighter and emergency paramedic. For months I have had sleep disturbances and have lost almost ten kilograms. My GP refuses me a certificate and would rather refer me to psychotherapy. But who really needs to be treated here?
I work in a hospital. It is absolutely undignified to put a mask on elderly, sick, demented patients and to face them with our own faces covered. How far have we come?
As a driving instructor I spend up to twelve hours a day in the car. Wearing a face mask severely restricts communication with my pupils. At high temperatures inside the car I develop breathing difficulties and headaches; a plexiglass shield also causes light refractions, so that I sometimes do not recognize hazards in time.
In my former profession as a marine engineer at sea, we often had to practise in confined spaces with full face masks and breathing apparatus. Breathing in ship exhaust still triggers panic states for me, 30 years later.
I work with my wife in a children's home and run a residential family group. All of my kids complain about the current situation. Except for one of the children, all of them show symptoms they had never had before.
For my client in the nursing home a mask would mean her death. I visited her for over ten years as a volunteer visitor together with my daughter. Since March I can no longer see her. We both suffer greatly from the separation.
I am now in my 17th week of pregnancy and am truly very afraid that my baby and I are not getting enough oxygen. When I was out without a mask, many strangers harassed me. Please help me.
I will soon be 35 years old and am expecting my fourth child. When wearing a mask I suffer from dizziness, palpitations, acute shortness of breath, sweating outbreaks – and in addition fear and panic for the baby.
What I almost forgot to list under „symptoms" is the constant feeling of humiliation when I am on public transport with a mask and at the same time have to look at all the unhappy masked people around me.
Five weeks ago my husband had a 15-minute cardiac arrest. He is in a vegetative state on the neurology ward. We visit every day and talk to him a great deal – but we have to wear masks. I am afraid that he will not recognise us.
Please for my mother – at almost 84 years old, wearing a mask is generally hateful to her and a stress that regularly drives her blood pressure and blood sugar up.
This madness is wearing me down emotionally. For emotional reasons I cannot go along with these measures. I am asking for a certificate.
I thank you a thousand times over. I am feeling better now thanks to you.
Many heartfelt thanks for your quick reply, you are making me the happiest person in the world right now.
Thank you very much for your sincere commitment. The world needs more doctors like you.
Dr. med. univ. Peer Eifler, general practitioner from Bad Aussee, issued the certificates these people asked him for. For doing so he is still being prosecuted under criminal and professional law to this day – he has lived in exile in East Africa since March 2021.