Corrupt corporate media outlets are using their influence to profit off of mocking unvaccinated people who have died after contracting COVID-19.
For weeks, Democrats and the corporate media have documented the rise in COVID-19 cases and the deaths that result from them. While newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control indicates 99.5 percent of people who died from the virus in the last six months did not receive the vaccine, corporate media is using their deaths to mock them and push an agenda.
Just this weekend, the Associated Press sent out a wire featuring a story about “a man who mocked Covid-19 vaccinations [that] died this week at a Los Angeles-area hospital after contracting the virus.” In the article, republished by various corporate media outlets, the author noted that 34-year-old Stephen Harmon posted various anti-COVID vaccine statements on social media before he died from pneumonia
“’I got 99 problems but a vax ain’t one,’ he said in a tweet last month,” the article stated.
Harmon made it clear on his social media that he wasn’t so much “anti-vax” as much as he was “pro information” but that didn’t stop the media from highlighting his statements as mocking of vaccines.
“I’m not against it, i’m just not in a rush to get it,” he wrote in an Instagram post in early July. “Ironically, as I continue to lay here … in my covid ward isolation room fighting off the virus and pneumonia.”
“Man who made fun of vaccination efforts on social media dies of Covid” one NBC News headline published last week stated.
A man who mocked Covid-19 vaccinations on social media has died at a Los Angeles-area hospital after contracting the virus.
“I got 99 problems but a vax ain't one," he wrote in a tweet last month. https://t.co/aviDHiH2fV
— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 24, 2021
Daily Beast also boosted the story but added in the fact that Harmon was a “congregant of Hillsong Church and graduate of Hillsong College.”
Stephen Harmon, a 34-year-old congregant of Hillsong Church and graduate of Hillsong College, who tweeted, "I got 99 problems but a vax ain't one,” died Wednesday after a month-long bout with the coronavirus https://t.co/XXUFJSVFFy
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) July 23, 2021
When Hillsong founder and global senior pastor Brian Houston said that despite Harmon’s death he believes that vaccines are a “personal decision” the media erupted in a frenzy and ran headlines implicating him for his comments.
In his tribute to Harmon, Houston urged his congregants and others to “follow the guidance of their doctors” and even admitted that “many of our staff, leadership and congregation have already received the Covid-19 vaccine.” But that didn’t stop corporate media outlets such as CNN, Insider, The Independent, and Yahoo from overlooking the positive qualities of Harmon’s life to highlight the pastor’s emphasis on personal choice.
It’s not just the media who are shaming unvaccinated patients who die of COVID. Dr. Oren Friedman, a medical professional working with COVID-19 patients in Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center called Harmon’s death “unbelievably demoralizing.” Just last week, corporate media amplified a similar story about an Alabama doctor who admitted that she did not want to feel bad for her unvaccinated patients who were struggling to recover from the virus.
“You kind of go into it thinking, ‘Okay, I’m not going to feel bad for this person, because they make their own choice,’” Dr. Brytney Cobia told Alabama.com.
Cobia concedes that once she sees the patient, her perspective changes but that doesn’t stop her from telling them that “it’s too late” and blaming misinformation for their death.
“…They’re still just a person that thinks that they made the best decision that they could with the information that they have, and all the misinformation that’s out there,” she said.
Once her patient passes away, Cobia said she “hug[s] their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same.”
“They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives,” Cobia said.
Cobia’s story shows how some health care workers, who take an oath to offer care and healing to people regardless of their opinions, are becoming increasingly judgemental of people who disagree with them on experimental, non-FDA-approved vaccines. Furthermore, Cobia’s story raises questions about the corrupt media’s willingness to boost exaggerated stories that simply represent their agenda.
CNN made that mistake last year when the outlet aired an interview with a South Dakota emergency room nurse who claimed that patients dying of COVID-19 in “overrun” hospitals in her area are spending their last moments in denial that they have the virus. Reporting later showed, however, that the viral interview was grossly misleading after the medical center where the nurse reportedly worked only had six total COVID-19 deaths, the county housing the medical center had only seen 22 deaths, and the county had only seen one death.
