A Covid sceptic old age pensioner on treatment for the virus and encouraged to leave hospital by anti-vaxxers has died.

Joe McCarron was filmed leaving a ward in the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday last week as doctors begged him to stay. He had been receiving treatment in intensive care after becoming severely ill.

The 75-year-old, who later returned to hospital two days after abandoning treatment lost his fight against the deadly virus the following day.

The footage of the pensioner walking away from ICU has propelled anti-vaccination campaigns back into the spotlight.

The shocking video shows Italian national Antonio Mureddu Gravegliu – of the so-called Freedom on the Land Movement – apparently remonstrating with trained medics.

Gravegliu can be heard in the film telling the sick pensioner: “Put your trousers on, my friend.

“We are going home. You are safe.”

A medic tells the Italian: “You’re endangering his life by doing that.” The doctor can then be seen leaning down to tell Mr McCarron: “You have the right to decide what you want to do, but I don’t think what he’s saying is right at all.

“You’re barely able to breathe… we want you to stay to help you.”

Mureddu Gravegliu replies: “If you stay here, they’re going to f***ing kill you, Joe. “These people, they’re not going to help you.”

The doctor asks him not to swear – but he replies: “That is my right, because you are killing people. That’s why I’m p***ed off.”

A frail McCarron eventually stands as Mureddu Gravegliu repeatedly demands: “Come on.”

Those responsible for getting McCarron to leave have been blasted by Micheál Martin, the Republic’s Taoiseach. “If you get Covid, you should treat it as very serious,” he said.

“Certainly, it is outrageous that anyone would, in an ill-informed way, be advising people to leave hospital. “It endangers that person’s health.”

Protestors had claimed that McCarron was being forced into the ICU at the County Donegal hospital and camped there to film his walk out.

Just two days after he left, McCarron was brought back after suffering severe breathing difficulties.

His condition suddenly deteriorated and he died.

McCarron’s family had slammed those who helped take him out of the hospital while his widow Una apologised to hospital staff for what happened.