The thing that perhaps bothers me the most about this case is the doctor charged so much for doing nothing.

A regional court in the southwestern town of Weinheim confirmed Tuesday that the doctor was convicted of “issuing incorrect health certificates” to people from across Germany, most of whom she had never met or examined.

In addition to the prison sentence she was handed a three-year work ban [along with nearly three years in jail] and ordered to pay 28,000 euros ($29,550), the sum she had received for issuing the medical certificates.

$30K was earned by telling people who were never seen or examined that they don’t need anything?

That sounds predatory and wrong regardless of COVID. The large profit, especially in a country with low cost healthcare, suggests it was always about the money to this doctor and nothing else.

It’s a basic corruption case, an example of a doctor with zero integrity who made society less safe by preying upon fears and beliefs.

The pandemic has highlighted problems like this in public health that probably wouldn’t have been caught otherwise. Germans are fortunate to have such a doctor banned from practice.