The first death threat arrived last November, on the very day Lisa-Maria Kellermayr was set to take over her own medical practice.

As she and her staff readied themselves to welcome their first patients in Seewalchen am Attersee, an idyllic lakeside town of 5,700, she received an email that outlined in painstaking detail how its author would come to Kellermayr’s office and slaughter her and her entire staff.

That message was the start of a harrowing seven-month ordeal for Kellermayr, one which ultimately led to her shuttering her practice in late June. It was the first of hundreds of threatening messages she received because of her public comments about the coronavirus pandemic — threats she said the police largely downplayed, leaving her without the support she needed.

“This is not going to end soon,” Kellermayr told me in mid-July, her short, wavy brown hair pulled halfway back and glasses framing her face. “I don’t know if, in a few years, I can live a normal life without looking left and right before going out the door.”