This series documents stories from the Herman Cain Awards subreddit tracking the COVID mis- and disinformation on Facebook that is leading to so many deaths. Today’s cautionary tale is definitely a top three of all time, and this is the 123rd story I’ve written in this series.
Update: Well, she’s unmasked in this Daily Beast article. She was a prominent Republican activist.
Canon was prominent in Republican circles for her grassroots organizing and campaign to ban red light cameras in Arlington. She also made headlines in 2017 for going public about sexually explicit photos allegedly sent to her by then-GOP Rep. Joe Barton, a scandal which ultimately ended in Barton stepping down.
She caught COVID at that anti-vaxx “symposium” that has felled at least one other kook.
We pick up this story on the day of Donald Trump’s failed insurrection, Jan. 6, 2021. Read this screenshot from the bottom up.
Jan. 5: Oh boy oh boy oh boy, tomorrow will be Q Christmas as we overturn the results of the election!
Jan. 6: It’s an American revolution! Yes! It’s happening! Best Christmas ever! Go MAGA!
Jan. 6, a couple of hours later: It was antifa.
Do they still really think you need to be straight to procreate?
She was so proud of her super secret hard-to-decypher code, she had to post it twice. And then used the wrong code. It’s supposed to be “Let’s go Brandon.”
COVID was psyched too!
And now cheering murderous Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal. At this point, karma had enough.
She got a religious exemption for the vaccine. The religious basis for opposing them is that a fetal stem cell line was used in the development of all the vaccines.
Guess what was used in the development of monoclonal antibodies?
An experimental monoclonal antibody cocktail made by Regeneron and hailed by President Donald Trump as a “cure” was tested on cells derived, long ago, from fetal tissue.
Where was the religious objection in this case?
These people are so full of shit it’s unbelievable.
And that’s not getting into the fact that monoclonal antibodies are still being used under experimental status, without full FDA approval. That suddenly doesn’t bother them either.
But guys, nothing to worry about. It’s just a bad cold. The cough is “productive.” Vice President Kamala Harris is still a joke for urging people to vaccinate. #FJB!
“Okay, maybe it’s more than just a bad cold. But it’s still nothing. Just some aches!”
Dec. 28:
“Uh oh, COVID is no joke. Which is what Kamala Harris said, but SHE was the joke!”
But the fever broke, which as we’ve all seen is COVID’s cruel dead-cat bounce. She must’ve sensed something was still off as she asked people if the fever would return.
“NO I WOULDN’T VACCINATE, I survived this thing, which I still haven’t actually survived!”
Also …
“Fear does not rule over me but I’m terrified of my blood oxygen levels and can anyone reassure me that this horrid fever won’t return?” Honestly, don’t get the notion that vaccinating means we are “living in fear.” Quite the opposite! It’s a release from the fear and anxiety created by a killer pathogen affecting millions. That’s why omicron, as mild as it might be, was so devastating. It stripped away the security of our initial vaccination. And yet, even then, it was still comforting to know that vaccination and having the booster protected from hospitalization and death—something the unvaxxed are clearly dealing with.
Jan. 2:
Quite the evolution over these 10 days:
“It was going to get me anyway, no biggie.”
“It’s just a bad cold!”
“Okay, it’s admittedly a nasty virus!”
“Oof. I ain’t gonna lie, the past few days have been tough.”
“I’m in the hospital with COVID pneumonia and it hurts to breathe.”
But hey, it’s “survivable,” so that fake religious exemption was still worth it.
Seriously, just saying “if you catch this thing and are unvaccinated, it will hurt to breathe” would be enough to jab whatever they wanted to stick in my arm. You don’t even need to show me the death statistics. “Hurts to breathe” is among the most terrifying symptoms I could ever imagine.
Then again, I’d take a vaccine for the common cold, because who the hell wants to get sick if they can avoid it? I mean, other than this crowd.
Doctor: “Your loved one is in bad shape. Let me administer this treatment that can significantly improve her survival rate.”
Family: “NO! Dr. Facebook told me remdesivir kills patients!”
Not kidding, the key study on remdesivir use found that it could cut mortality rates around 30%-40%. It also significantly improved recovery times for survivors.
The Kaplan–Meier estimates of mortality were 6.7% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo by day 15 and 11.4% with remdesivir and 15.2% with placebo by day 29
Her family didn’t kill this woman, but they certainly participated in her demise. Her sister, who wrote that post above, deleted it a week later after her sister died, which was yesterday:
“It is survivable.”
It is. Of course it is. The stats don’t lie: The vast majority of people emerge fine, a smaller number end up with chronic issues, and an even smaller number than that die. But nearly 1 million Americans have died. The odds might be good, but they’re not absolute. The unvaxxed are placing a bet, and someone has to end up on the wrong side of those statistics.
I keep writing this because it’s incredibly salient to any vaccination debate: There are 45,000 commercial flights around the globe every day. If the airline industry had a 99.6% success rate, that would mean 180 planes would crash every single day. Would she have gotten on a plane and said “it is survivable”? Yes, the vast majority of planes would land safely, but no one would fly with those odds! And yet here we are in a similar situation, except people dying in cloaked hospital rooms don’t have the emotional impact of a plane crash. We’d be better if it did, but it doesn’t. That’s why this series is so important to me. It lifts the veil. And no matter how much conservatives want to bray that “fear does not rule over me,” what’s on the other side is legitimately terrifying.
I wonder if she ultimately regretted her vaccination decision in those last days as she gasped for air. I wonder if whatever asshole granted her a fake religious exemption feels any remorse for stamping his or her approval. I wonder if her family is second guessing their decision to deny her remdesivir, eliminating one of the few last-line defenses available to doctors.
Wait, her “heavenly mansion”? Are there 72 virgins as well for the men in this supposed paradise? This prosperity gospel bullshit is sick as f’. And notice she didn’t die of COVID, but of COVID-related pneumonia.
Her smug certainty did her in. A simple jabby-jabby would’ve saved her life—instead, she succumbed to this “survivable” disease because of ignorance and stupidity.
