Austrian government admits that their covid policies caused mental health problems and tripled suicidal thoughts in children
Freedom Party (FPÖ) Members of the Austrian Parliament have submitted 827 parliamentary written questions to the government regarding the covid pandemic and its management.
The first answers to these written questions have been received. “The Government admits to massive increases in children’s mental health problems (+57%) and suicidal ideation (tripled), yet Branch Covidians see no fault on their part,” Epimetheus writes.
The FPÖ is seeking a parliamentary committee to investigate the pandemic and its impact, with a focus on the government’s “authoritarian corona policy” and the erosion of fundamental rights, particularly concerning compulsory vaccination and lockdown measures.
However, Green MPs have labelled the FPÖ’s use of parliamentary written questions as an “abuse of democracy” and accusing them of spreading “fake news” and “disinformation.”
The Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (“FPÖ”), or Freedom Party of Austria, was founded in 1956 and has been led by Herbert Kickl since 2021. It is the largest of five parties in the Austrian National Council (the lower house of the Austrian Parliament and is the primary legislative body in the country), with 57 of the 183 seats, and won 28.85% of votes cast in the 2024 election.
It is described by Globalist mouthpiece Wikipedia as “far-right, right-wing populist, national-conservative and Eurosceptic.” Which means the Globalists view the party as a threat to their plans for a world without borders under a One World Government.
On a European level, the FPÖ is a founding member of the Patriots for Europe (“PfE”). Its six Members of the European Parliament (“MEPs”) sit with the PfE group, the main opposition party within the European Parliament.
At the beginning, the FPÖ was in favour of covid measures. But it changed its stance in the summer of 2020 and has been challenging the covidians’ narrative ever since.
As Epimetheus details below, FPÖ has submitted 827 written questions to the Austrian government about covid. Epimetheus refers to these as “parliamentary interpellations” or “parliamentary inquiries” but in the UK, we refer to these as “written questions” which require a written answer from the government department to which the MP has directed his/her question. Please note that Europeans most commonly refer to “covid” as “corona.”
The Government admits to massive increases in children’s mental health problems (+57%) and suicidal ideation (tripled), yet Branch Covidians see no fault on their part.
By Epimetheus
Table of Contents
These [Substack] pages started as a kind of journal, or diary, about Austria’s insane Covid mandates and policies way back in September 2021.
Fast-forward to the present, despite massive political shifts – the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) is now the biggest parliamentary faction yet remains shut out of government (for better or worse) – there’s virtually no desire to consider what happened on the part of the powers-that-be.
Yes, the FPÖ is far from perfect (and that’s pushing the adage quite a bit), and, yes, the FPÖ was also in favour of locking down in spring 2020. Yet, once the Freedom Party shifted its stance in summer of that year, it stayed on message ever since, and it’s literally the only parliamentary faction in Austria that still talks about the Covid Mania (nastier voices might suggest that staying on topic for that long might be a first for the FPÖ).
Despite loads of electoral victories, the Freedom Party remains out of office at the federal level, mainly due to their rather less compliant stance on all matters covid. This is hardly surprising as the government is, currently, an uneasy three-party coalition led by the conservatives-in-name-only of the ÖVP in cahoots with the Social Democrats and the oligarch-funded small liberal™ NEOS. Together with the ÖVP’s previous partner in the last legislature, the Greens (don’t get me started), these politicos™ were, and in many cases are still (!), all-in on the entire charade.
“Mandates saved lives, the vaccines™ helped a ton, and ‘covid deniers’ are evil and stupid” – it’s the entire charade all over again, that is, if these people and their camp followers in academia and legacy media ever talk about it.
To this day, to cite FPÖ Secretary General Michael Schnedlitz who spoke on that subject matter to legacy media back in the spring of this year:
No introspection, no honest remorse, no apology, and not a word about a real reckoning. [Former health minister Rudi] Anschober’s statements are a single continued mockery of the victims of the forced coronavirus regime that he installed under ÖVP leadership and from whose consequences tens of thousands are still suffering today …
But Herbert Kickl and us Freedom Party members are certainly not done with it when it comes to the coronavirus regime …
Children and young people were virtually locked up at home, old people were isolated, trenches were torn right into families, businesses were ruined, and people who criticised all these evidence-free measures and also demonstrated peacefully against them were vilified as Covid deniers, conspiracy theorists, conspirators, sectarians, right-wing extremists, etc.
For full coverage, please refer to the posting: ‘5 Years of Covid: Finger-Pointing in Austria’s Parliament and Legacy Media’.
Why am I bringing it up once more?
Well, back in mid-March, after unsuccessfully negotiating with the ÖVP to form a government – from what I was able to gather, the ÖVP blocked all topics related to mandates and pandemic™ management (sic), which, among other things, ended these talks – the Freedom Party used the right of MPs to question the government.
Any MP may submit a so-called parliamentary interpellation (orig. parlamentarische Anfrage) to the president of the assembly whose office then forwards them to the competent cabinet-level minister. The latter, in turn, is legally obligated to respond truthfully (on pain of perjury), and these interpellations must be answered within a set period of time (usually two months); if the answer is not available, this must be justified.
It just happened, as detailed in the above-linked posting from mid-March, that Freedom Party MPs sent a whopping 827 individual interpellations to the new (current) government; now, the first answers are available, and this is the subject of today’s posting.
We’ll start with a brief item from state broadcaster ORF about these answers, followed by a legacy media piece reporting™ on them.
Translations, emphases, and [snark] mine.
FPÖ Receives First Responses to Flood of Covid Enquiries [orig. Anfragenflut]
The following is an article published by ORF.at on 5 July 2025 [source; archived].
The FPÖ has submitted 827 parliamentary inquiries in order to come to terms with the pandemic – the first answers have now been received. In a response, Freedom Party National Council President Walter Rosenkranz provided information on citizen participation during the pandemic. At that time, there was a sharp increase in statements from private individuals [see the spin: as per Art. 1 of the constitution, “all law derives from the people”—private individuals may not be in office, but technically speaking, the citizenry is the owner of the country].
While there were only around 200 comments from private individuals on the parliamentary website in 2019, there were more than 250,000 in 2022[some from yours truly], during the height of the pandemic [more spin: wasn’t that in 2020?]. The curve then levelled off again: there were around 7,500 comments in 2024 and around 800 in the first half of 2025.
The five ministerial draft legislations with the most comments between 2019 and 2023 were all related to the Covid-19 Measures Act, the Compulsory Vaccination Act, or the Federal Crisis Security Act, according to the response [that alone should tell you everything you need to know as to why the no-one in government, legacy media and academia wishes to talk about the Covid Mania].
Eleven of 36 Ballot Initiatives Related to Covid 2019-23
These do not come from “conspirators or right-wing radicals,” but are “the voice of a free people with a free attitude towards democracy and law,” emphasised FPÖ party leader Herbert Kickl.
The FPÖ has also requested a parliamentary committee [orig. Untersuchungsausschuss] to investigate the pandemic. In this way, the people would have defended themselves against the “authoritarian corona policy, against the threat of compulsory vaccination, and against the erosion of our fundamental rights” [which, let’s not forget, was also pushed by the EU – and instead of defending civic rights, the Government conspired with hand-picked experts™ and journos™ to take away freedoms and liberties: to my mind, a clear case of treason].
The FPÖ took particular offence at the ÖVP, as the ÖVP-led governments “consistently ignored” the opinions of citizens [that’s the modus operandi of governments once in office]
Eleven of the 36 petitions submitted between 2019 and 2023 were covid-related. The initiative ‘Compulsory vaccination: Strict NO’ received the most responses, namely 4,703, one of several that opposed the compulsory vaccination that was decided in 2022 but ultimately not implemented.
Deadline for Response Expires at the End of the Week
There were also nine (out of 151) petitions and seven (out of 74) citizens’ ballot initiatives dealing with the covid measures or the restriction of fundamental rights. Government ministries have until Sunday to respond to the FPÖ’s remaining covid enquiries.
Intermission
Needless to say, back in spring, the FPÖ was accused of all kinds of things, especially that these enquiries were “clogging” and “hampering” regular government work™ (gimme a break).
I shall, as pars pro toto, link to one of my pieces from around Christmas time in 2021, which details the then-pending Covid Vaccine Mandate, a first universal injection order with crushing penalties. Here’s what I wrote, with tons of references to specifics detailed in the below-linked posting:
One can see that this is not a public health measure. It is, frankly, a piece of Enabling Legislation (Ermächtigungsgesetz) that is both unwarranted and irresponsible.
Among the many reasons why I said so, perhaps the most appalling notion was:
The empowerment, or authorisation, of a single government minister (the Health Minister) to determine which vaccines, how many jabs, and on what grounds these may be decreed (§ 4 and 5).
A single government minister – who must not be a trained and licensed physician with commensurate credentials and experience – arrogated to him, or herself, the right™ to do all this; and to add insult to injury, once passed into law™, the act would permit this by issuing regulatory ordinances.
Let that sink in. Sources and extensive commentary here: ‘Covidistan Annals VII: a detailed look at the Vaxx Mandate, its implications, and the (dark) future it portends’.
Out of the many dedicated postings from that January 2022, I’ll delimit myself to a telling selection about the mood back then: protests were growing, the Government was in disarray, and the shaky legality™ of the mandatory vaccination act were the flip-side of what FPÖ politico™ Schnedlitz spoke about back in March of this year.
Read more:
- Covidistan Annals XIII: the calm before the vaxx mandate enters into force, Epimetheus, 25 January 2022
- Here’s a quick transcript of the Constitutional Court’s questions to Health Minister Mückstein, Epimetheus, 30 January 2022
- Covidistan Annals XIX: Mückstein finally decreed the details, more snap election rumours (and insider info on this), and preliminary considerations about a ‘hot spring’, Epimetheus, 8 February 2022
In the end, public pressure (and Omicron, but mostly the former) grew so big that the brittle covid regime cracked and reversed course: although the act was passed into law (shame on all of them), the Branch Covidians never implemented it (it was revoked unceremoniously half a year later) and instead ended most mandates a month later, read: ‘Covidistan Annals XXII: ‘freedom’s just another word…’ – many mandates will end on 5 March, the injection mandate perhaps 10 days later; an election is more likely now, and I think it’ll come in spring’.
“A Shame” – Dramatic Covid Episode Revealed
The following is based on an article published by Heute.at on 5 July 2025 [source; archived]
The first answers to the series of parliamentary covid inquiries are alarming. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl wants to hold the government to account.
It is now exactly two months since the FPÖ’s flood of enquiries on the subject of corona (827 were submitted in one go, at a cost of several million euros [what’s the price of liberty?]). This means that the answers from the ministries are now gradually trickling in.
Around 150 are already available on the parliament’s website. Particularly alarming: the one that scrutinises the rise in mental illness [while the legacy media piece doesn’t provide a link, HERE is the reply]. “The Black [the ÖVP’s traditional party colour]-Green government has caused serious psychological damage to young people by locking them up – and to this day, there has been no word of apology,” says FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl.
“A Shame” – Dramatic Covid Episode Revealed, Heute, 5 July 2025
How bad is the situation? Here’s what the government minister Wiederkehr’s answer, found on p. 3, says (emphasis added):
Question 4: How was the mental health situation of pupils during the lockdowns systematically recorded and documented?
On the one hand, the school psychology hotline was monitored to record the reason for the calls and the content of the telephone counselling sessions [there goes your privacy, by the way]. On the other hand, the individual case files and documented counselling cases were evaluated as part of the school psychology activity reports. This revealed a clear trend towards increasing and increasingly complex individual case work.
Say no more: the Covid regime knew what the mandates were doing – and they kept them in place despite listening in on distressed school-aged children’s concerns speaking a very different language; and then there’s the entire issue of privacy and patients’ rights that were, it would appear, equally ended.
Increase in Prescriptions
According to the response to the enquiry, the number of young patients and prescriptions of psychotropic drugs to children (such as Ritalin for the treatment of ADHD) has risen sharply [the Branch Covidians are strangely silent, esp. all those experts™ who always stood ready to yell “correlation isn’t causation” from the top of their lungs]. While the number of patients with corresponding prescriptions rose from 21,500 in 2018 to 29,300 in 2023 (an increase of 36%), the number of prescriptions issued rose from 138,100 to 216,400, which corresponds to an increase of 57%. [Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns: the more apt way to speak would be – talk about politicos™ taking a dump on the country’s future while … smiling, of course, without adherence to mandates, while participating (partying) at a charity event].
Warning voices about this had already been raised in 2021, but were not heard [more BS: they weren’t even listened to, plus remember all the name-calling of “covid deniers = far right-wing extremists”] according to the accusation made by the enquirer Sebastian Schwaighofer. The Head of Paediatric and Adolescent Psychiatry at Vienna General Hospital, Paul Plener, had discussed the overcrowded wards, depression, exhaustion and lack of motivation at the time. “In 2022, the suicide rate among under 20-year-olds rose by 55% and clinics recorded three times as many cases of suicidal risk as before the pandemic.” [Emphasis added.]
“A Shame” – Dramatic Covid Episode Revealed, Heute, 5 July 2025
Read THIS posting detailing the harrowing case of one such vaxx-injured young adult who committed suicide.
‘Years of Tyranny’
Herbert Kickl therefore announces: “We Freedom Party members will make these years of oppression, disenfranchisement and humiliation visible.” The government’s coronavirus strategy was “inhumane” and should not remain without consequences for the individual politicians. “It is a disgrace.”[I second that notion wholeheartedly].
“A Shame” – Dramatic Covid Episode Revealed, Heute, 5 July 2025
Bottom Lines
I’m a fairly simple guy with a particular fondness for Occam’s Razor: as the powers-that-be knew what was going on during the Covid Mania yet determined to stay the course, I submit this is enough to infer either stupidity or malice. In the case of the former, these politicos™, experts™ and journos™ shouldn’t be anywhere near the jobs they are due to incompetence; in the case of the latter, well, it resolves the question of intent so relevant for criminal law.
We also learn, once more, that it’s impossible to plead ignorance here, which is yet another reason for a hard reckoning re all matters covid.
Once we “zoom out” a bit more, we must furthermore confront the yet-even-more insidious reaction of the covid tyrants to the FPÖ’s dissident stance: as I mentioned in my introduction, every MP has the right to interpellation, which in turn obliges the competent cabinet-level minister to reply. This is part and parcel of any self-respecting parliamentary oversight – but given the covid tyranny, many FPÖ politicos™ resorted to this option to at least put some government members on the record.
As predictably as day follows night, the brain-addled Branch Covidians didn’t like that at all, hence it won’t surprise you that, by summer 2022, Green MPs were calling for the abolishment of parliamentary oversight:
Green MPs Eva Blimlinger and Ralph Schallmeiner (bios HERE and HERE, respectively, courtesy of the Nationalrat’s website) were given a prominently displayed platform – their op-ed went live at 6 am and remained at the top of their website for hours – to disparage their fellow MP:
FPÖ Enquiries: An Abuse of Democracy
Parliamentary Enquiries are an Important Instrument of Control. However, when a party relies on fake news and disinformation, this right is ridiculed.
In an op-ed, Green MPs Eva Blimlinger and Ralph Schallmeiner vent their frustration about a parliamentary enquiry by the Freedom Party. In their view, no answers can be provided, because democracy …
Questions like these are an abuse of parliamentary democracy, have nothing to do with the constitutionally guaranteed right of interpellation or the right to ask questions, for they merely make a mockery of these rights. [Emphasis added.]
FPÖ inquiry: An Abuse of Democracy, Der Standard, 26 July 2022
Yep, you read that correctly: sitting MPs called the constitutionally enshrined right of MPs to question the government an “abuse” (their word, not mine).
When I saw two Green MPs – remember: they are in the federal government and, due to their grip on the Health (and Human Services) Ministry since early 2020, in charge of Covid policy implementation – using strong legal wording (“abuse,” “disinformation and fake news,” and the like, peppered by du jour allegations of “anti-semitism”), it made sense to me: These ‘Greens’ are actually laying the groundwork for their eco-tyrannical utopia, which will end, like all these pipe dreams, in rivers of blood.
Don’t take my word for it, because there’s no need for this, as this was – in perhaps the only actually correct prediction in the field of social theory – foreseen by none other than the Greens’ ideological and virtue-signalling ancestor, Mikhail Bakunin, as inferred to by none other than, ironically, Noam Chomsky who, during the Covid Mania, also revealed his true colours (source HERE, my emphases):
[Bakunin] was arguing with Marx, and it was well before Leninism. He predicted very presciently that the rising class of intellectuals, who were just becoming identified as a class in modern industrial society, would essentially go in one of two directions.
Some intellectuals would believe that the struggles of the working class would offer them an opportunity to rise and take state power into their own hands. And at that point, he said, they would become the red bureaucracy who would create the worst tyranny the world had ever known, of course, all in the interests of the workers. That’s one direction.
The other intellectuals would realise that you’re never going to get power that way. Therefore, the way to get power would be to associate yourself with what we would nowadays call state capitalism and just become a servant of its ruling class. Then you become one of the managers or an ideologue and so on for the state capitalist system.
The Greens, in espousing these non-sensical, if ultimately anti-popular rule, positions are actually managing to (re)unite these two vanguard factions: the claim to believe in the struggles of the chattering and laptop classes, have successfully carried out their “long march” through the state institutions (to paraphrase former German vice-chancellor and Green party stalwart Joschka Fischer, although the phrase relates to both Chairman Mao and Herbert Marcuse), and they are currently building a bio-red bureaucracy that, if memory of the past 2.5 years serves – in particular in Austro-Covidistan – the “worst tyranny,” of course all in the interests of bio-medical security (I wrote these words in late July 2022):
They associate themselves with “the state” and have become the most vociferous “servant of its ruling class.”
On top of this is the equally troublesome, if not even more pernicious, issue of levelling abuses on other MPs. Look, I know parliamentary representative democracy isn’t perfect, and I understand that ideological differences are real, but to call the political opposition’s constitutional right to petition state officials – with the equivalent of subpoena powers – to ask for redress of grievances an act of “abuse” [Missbrauch] is tantamount to declare open season on dissent …
It’s highly problematic that legacy media provides MPs of one of the parties currently in government with a platform to hurl – unsourced – allegations of “mak[ing] a mockery of science and research, whose interest is to undermine democracy with fake news, whose interest is to divide society, and who take anti-Semitism for granted” at fellow MPs.
Lest we all continue to remain asleep and distracted, we may, one day soon, awaken in a kind of second Bolshevik utopia that, as Marx himself so eloquently put it (in the opening paragraphs of ‘The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon’, first published in 1853): “History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce.”
He certainly didn’t discount the notion that the farcical reprisal will be less bloody than the original tragedy.
Covid Futures: Austrian Green MPs Call Parliamentary Oversight by the Opposition ‘Abuse’ and ‘Harassment’, Epimetheus, 28 July 2022
The Covid sh*tshow ain’t over, not by a long stretch of the imagination.
About the Author
Epimetheus, a pseudonym for a professor of early modern and modern European civilisation, writes the Substack page ‘Die Fackel 2.0’. Die Fackel 2.0 began in September 2021, mostly as a diary or personal journal to document the madness that engulfed Austria during the WHO-declared “covid pandemic.” The publication covers contemporary politics, from a specific Central and Eastern European perspective, sometimes with a partially Scandinavian slant.
The Substack page is suffixed by “2.0” as the original Die Fackel was a journal by Vienna-based journalist and commentator Karl Kraus (1874-1936) whose biting commentary was “directed … at the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics.”
