Seven doctors contract Covid after attending Florida anti-vaccine summit
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Doctors tested positive or developed symptoms ‘within days’ of conference at which alternative treatments were discussed
At Least 7 Anti-Vaccine, Anti-Mask Conservative Activists Have Died of COVID-19 in Recent Weeks
By
Jim Vorel | September 16, 2021 | 12:35pm
nearly all of the country’s COVID-related deaths are
now among those who are unvaccinated. And nothing has illustrated this point with more grim irony than the rash of deaths among high-profile anti-vaccine and anti-mask advocates in the last month.
In recent weeks, at least 7 different anti-vaccine and anti-mask conservative activists have ultimately died in hospital settings from COVID-19 and its complications. The men were radio hosts Bob Enyart, Phil Valentine, Marc Bernier and Dick Farrel, along with former CIA officer/conspiracy theorist Robert David Steele, South Carolina GOP leader Pressley Stutts, and anti-vaccine activist Caleb Wallace. All had used their platforms to push various bits of misinformation about the virus, masks and the vaccines, and all were ultimately brought low by the very virus they refused to take seriously. Sadly, several recanted of their anti-vaccine stances in particular before passing away, but by then it was too late.
Florida radio host Dick Farrel, real name Farrel Austin Levitt, passed away from COVID-19 in early August at the age of 65, according to his fiancée. In the months before contracting the virus, he had repeatedly referred to the vaccines as a hoax, calling Dr. Anthony Fauci “a power-tripping lying freak.”
Writing on Facebook in July, shortly before contracting the virus, he questioned the following: “Why take a vax promoted by people who lied 2u all along about masks, where the virus came from and the death toll?” Roughly a month later, Farrel was dead, after reportedly encouraging friends and family to get the vaccine while he languished in the hospital. According to a friend of Farrel’s, the radio host also
said he wished he had received the vaccine himself.
Need more?
The story is quite similar with Nashville, Tennessee conservative radio host Phil Valentine, an anti-vaccine advocate who
died of COVID-19 in mid-August after a month of being ill. Prior to contracting the virus, he insisted on air that his chances of death from the virus were “way less than one percent.” During his illness, his station, 99.7 WTN, clarified that Valentine had changed his position and “regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine,’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon.” Valentine, unfortunately, would not have that chance. His brother, Mark Valentine, put out the following statement after the radio host’s death, urging people to forget the political attachment that has grown up around what should be a simple matter of public health.
“Take politics out of it,”
said Mark Valentine to WBUR. “It’s time for us to get together and fight this thing collectively. Just put all the conspiracies and microchips and all that business aside and go get vaccinated and don’t put your family through what his wife and the rest of us are going through.”
30-year-old Caleb Wallace, a father of three who was known for organizing anti-mask and anti-vaccine “Freedom Rallies.” After contracting the virus in late July, Wallace initially refused to be tested for COVID, and instead
turned to a sampler of home remedies that conspiracy-driven far-right online communities have hailed as coronavirus cure-alls. According to Wallace’s wife, these treatments reportedly included high doses of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin and Ivermectin, the anti-parasitic drug for farm livestock currently being touted as a miracle anti-COVID drug in right-wing circles. Although Ivermectin has indeed
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