Column: Why do unvaccinated people in Florida — land of predictable tragedies — keep dying from COVID-19?
For some reason, unvaccinated people who speak out loudly in opposition to vaccines and masks keep dying from the virus that vaccines and masks help prevent.
It’s a real head-scratcher, and no state in the country highlights this conundrum better than my home state of Florida, the land of predictable tragedies.
Native Floridians like myself take great pride in knowing we are likely the reason oscillating fans come with warning labels. And I know the state where I was born and raised is now run by a fine and competent man, Gov. Ron DeSantis, who I’m sure earned the nickname “DeathSantis” because of some old Halloween prank and not because Florida has lost more people to COVID-19 than U.S. soldiers killed in the entirety of the Vietnam War.
But I keep seeing headlines like “Florida radio host who called himself ‘Mr. Anti-Vax’ dies of Covid” and reading stories that tell me things like “a Florida county Republican committee that had opposed measures to prevent COVID-19 informed the Federal Election Commission that the group may not be able to submit a filing because its bookkeeper died from the virus.”
So I reached out to my cousin, Gator. (If you’re born in Florida, your name, for at least a portion of your life, is “Gator.” Most of us grow out of the name, but with my cousin, it stuck. When he was 11, an alligator took a bite out of his rear end and “Gator” was the only nickname we could come up with that didn’t sound mean.)
Anyhoo, Gator told me things down there are a bit more upside down and backward than usual, and he passed along the following transcript of a recent meeting of the Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy. I have to believe this might be authentic, because I’ve never known Gator to lie unless the police are poking around his shed.
Here it is:
Hello everyone, and welcome to this meeting of the Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy. We’re meeting today in this parking lot behind the Hooters in Lakeland because Dale, our treasurer, died of COVID-19 last night and he had sole access to the accounts, so we couldn’t rent out our usual conference room space in the Best Western Plus.
Apologies for any inconvenience and thoughts and prayers to Dale’s family members. At least those who have not also died of COVID-19.
My name is Tad Horkington, and I’m honored to have been named president of the committee following the tragic death of Thomas Bilgenut, the interim president who last week died of COVID-19. Tom had, of course, replaced Hugh Frank, our previous president who died two weeks ago of COVID-19, along with his entire family and the adult football club he coached in Tampa. You’ll always be in our memories, Fightin’ Anti-Vaxxers.
We will not read minutes from last month’s meeting, as our committee secretary, Henry Sanford, is presently hospitalized with COVID-19. We wish him and his loved ones well, send our thoughts and prayers and commend his courageous work on the “MASKS ARE TYRANNY!” float that appeared in the Labor Day parade in Tarpon Springs. Hopefully we can honor Henry and his team at our next meeting, assuming they’re off their ventilators or out of quarantine.
Getting down to business, we need to sign off on the anti-vaccine-mandate statement that was put together by Belinda Thompson prior to her death from COVID-19. Thoughts and prayers to Belinda’s family, all of whom were infected by Belinda at the vaccine protest she organized in a sealed tent outside the Granada Plaza Publix in Dunedin.
The statement, which Belinda composed using her iPhone’s voice dictation feature, reads: “The Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy hereby denounces Sleepy Joe Biden’s TYRANNICAL attempt to COUGH mandate vaccines for anyone COUGH anywhere or at any COUGH time. We encourage all righteous COUGH Americans to stand up against this COUGH COUGH COUGH unlawful government overreach.”
I would propose we vote to approve that fine statement, but unfortunately, due to COVID-19 illnesses, we do not have a quorum.
Sam and Babs Holland both took ill shortly after recording the latest installment of their popular “COVID-19 Is Fake and I’ll Be Healthy Forever” podcast, and the Harrison brothers, Stanley and Margaret Jones, and Phil and Vanessa Dixie all got sick from an outbreak at the Polk County Republican Party’s “No Fauci-Ouchie For Florida” square-dance and rattlesnake festival.
As fate would have it, I’m the only person in attendance today, and even I barely made it as I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Jan Dodson, who is the only committee officer allowed to change the rules on voting, is unfortunately visiting her husband Zeke, who is in Tampa General Hospital’s COVID ward.
They won’t let her in because she patriotically refuses to wear a mask, so kudos to Jan for standing in the parking lot holding a sign that reads “STAY STRONG, ZEKE AND DON’T LET THEM MICROCHIP YOU!!”
COUGH! Excuse me. I’m sure it’s just a cold.
I will now conclude this meeting of the Florida GOP Committee on Health Policy. COUGH! I feel a bit feverish, so I’m going to go into the Hooters without a mask to get a beer and some wings and yell in people’s faces about freedom.
God bless COUGH! America.
Sign up here to receive Rex Huppke’s columns by email as soon as they are published.
