While COVID-19 deaths among prominent anti-vaxxers and vaccine skeptics continue to multiply and draw headlines, anti-vax activists are digging in their heels. With the midterm elections just around the corner, the conservative movement and the anti-vaccine movement are moving closer together. It's an alliance that promises to give both sides more political power, but it could cost thousands of lives.
The anti-vax movement recently lost another prominent spokesperson when Kelly Ernby, a vocal opponent of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, died of COVID-19 at age 46.
At a December 4 rally, outside Irvine City Hall, Kelly Ernby, a former Orange County GOP state assembly candidate, and deputy D.A., told the crowd that “There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now”. … Our government for the people and by the people is not going to exist without action of the people.” The rally, which was organized by the UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton chapters of Turning Point USA, drew dozens of people.
According to the TPM website, Ernby was a longtime anti-vaxxer. “Back in 2019 she opposed a new California law tightening school vaccines requirements: ‘If the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?’”
“The Orange County district attorney’s office is utterly heartbroken by the sudden and unexpected passing of Deputy Dist. Atty. Kelly Ernby,” Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “Kelly was an incredibly vibrant and passionate attorney who cared deeply about the work that we do as prosecutors — and deeply about the community we all fight so hard to protect.”
Ernby supported the failed campaign to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom. At an August rally, she said: “I’m sick of watching Gavin Newsom, our dictator, shut down our schools, shut down our businesses, shut down our churches, and I’m really sick of the fact that criminals have more rights than law-abiding citizens.”
Kelly Ernby is not the first prominent anti-vaxxer to die from COVID. There is now a growing list.
Marcus Lamb, the 64-year-old co-founder of Christian TV network Daystar, died after contracting COVID-19 in November. The network questioned the safety of vaccines and had aired a piece claiming the vaccines are “killing your immune system.”
According to The Hill (https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/584077-more-and-more-conservative-media-leaders-are) Phil Valentine, a conservative radio host from Tennessee, died of COVID-19 in August. “Valentine was an outspoken critic of the vaccine and even released a parody song that mocked it. However, in July he confirmed he had contracted the virus. By August local Nashville radio station WTN, where Valentine was a host, released a statement that denied Valentine was an ‘anti-vaxxer’ but that, ‘he regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine.’”
The Hill reported that “Florida talk radio host Dick Farrel, who also served as an anchor on right-wing TV network Newsmax, publicly sharing his criticism for the COVID-19 vaccine. Farrel called the vaccine bogus and called Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a, ‘power tripping lying freak.’” Farrel died from complications from COVID-19 in August.
Another Florida-based talk radio host Marc Brenier died of the virus after pushing anti-vaccine views on his show. According to The New York Times, Brenier said on his show in June that he was unvaccinated. “I’m one of them. Judge me if you want.” In July, he cited an unfounded claim that “45,000 people have died from taking the vaccine.” Later Bernier accused the government of “acting like Nazis” for encouraging COVID-19 vaccines.
On December 18, The New York Times reported that “State Senator Doug Ericksen, a Republican who had led efforts to oppose Washington State’s Covid-19 emergency orders and vaccine mandates, has died after his own battle with the illness. He was 52.”
Two weeks after Marcus Lamb’s death, Newsweek reported that Daystar, the Christian television network, “devoted an hour-long segment to promoting the message that COVID-19 vaccines do not protect against infection or death and accused those who were vaccinated of ‘drinking the Kool-Aid.’"
While some Christian pastors have been unafraid of advocating vaccines, many have been cowed into silence. Religion News Service recently reported that “Fewer than half of churchgoers say their clergy (44%) have spoken about vaccines, according to a survey by Pew Research. That includes just over a third (39%) who have encouraged people to get vaccines and a small number (5%) who have discouraged people from doing so. Those numbers drop for evangelical clergy, with 21% encouraging vaccines and 4% discouraging them.”
The accumulating death toll of outspoken anti-vaxxers will not shut down the anti-vaxxer crowd. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one of the nation’s most prominent and long haul anti-vaxxers. His new book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, has remained a best-seller on Amazon since it's release. According to and Associated Press investigation, The Children's Health Defense, Kennedy's anti-vaccine group, more than doubled their revenue to $6.4 million last year.
Anti-vaxxers are casting a blind eye, and don’t seem to appreciate the irony, or see the contradictions in so many of their leaders dying from Covid.
