Vaccination opponents in the USA: Purified in the intensive care unit

Rising numbers of corona cases are filling hospitals in the USA again – especially with those who have not been vaccinated. Many of them now regret their skepticism.

Dick Farrell regularly greeted his listeners on the microphone. The radio talk show host from Florida and ultra-conservative Trump fan polemicized against the corona vaccination for months on social networks: It was a hoax and America’s top virologist Anthony Fauci was a power-hungry liar. Why should you get vaccinated when you could still get sick?

In early August, the unvaccinated Farrell died of Covid. And his friend Amy Leigh Har tells on local television what he said to her on her deathbed: “‘This pandemic is no joke,’ he said. ‘I wish I had had a vaccination.'”

Another right-wing talk show host, Phil Valentine from Tennessee, created a mood in June with a Beatles parody: he turned the “Tax-Man” into the evil “Vax-Man”, i.e. the evil vaccination doctor. Then Valentine fell ill, barely survived. And let his brother Mark spread the following message on Facebook: “We want to tell as many people as possible: Leave politics aside and get vaccinated.”

“Find out more!”

Stories of purified vaccine skeptics are booming in the US media. Mindy Greene from Utah tells CNN that she has not had her family of six vaccinated – her husband has now been in intensive care for weeks, with holes in his lungs: “We are still one of the lucky ones – because my husband is still alive.” Mindy also begs her compatriots to get vaccinated: “Find out the facts. But you cannot make a good decision based on fear and lies.”

For many Americans, the message comes too late. In several southern states, where vaccination readiness is particularly low, the hospitals are again as overloaded as at the beginning of the pandemic. In Jackson, Mississippi, for example, the vice chief of university hospitals, Alan Jones, warns, “If this continues for the next five to seven days, the Mississippi hospital system will collapse. Everything is full.”

An emergency ward with 50 beds has therefore now been set up in the underground car park of his clinic. And the governor of Mississippi has requested the USNS Comfort – the military ship that was deployed in New York at the start of the pandemic.

Florida’s governor relies on Regeneron

In Louisiana, Texas and Florida, too, the situation is more dramatic than it has been since the beginning of the pandemic. In Florida there is a lack of doctors and nurses. Even there, the vast majority of corona patients in hospitals are not vaccinated. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron De Santis had abolished all corona protective measures. Now he is relying entirely on one drug instead of Impfapelle: Regeneron – the anti-body drug that ex-President Trump was also treated with last year. “This is the most effective treatment method for infected people,” he says. “If used early and correctly, it reduces the chances of hospital treatment by 70 percent.”

With a mobile unit, the drug will now be distributed across the state, the Republican promised, without giving any details. 14-year-old Marionna Baker from Missouri may make it without Regeneron. She didn’t want to be vaccinated either. From the hospital bed she now calls out: “Get your vaccination so that you don’t end up in the hospital and can continue to breathe.”