Topline
Bob Enyart, a conservative radio talk show host in Denver who urged listeners to boycott Covid-19 vaccines and vowed never to get a shot, has lost his life after contracting the virus, one of his co-hosts announced earlier this week, in what is but the latest instance of a right-wing radio pundit succumbing to the coronavirus.
Key Facts
On his show, entitled “Real Science Radio,” Enyart falsely claimed the vaccines were developed using aborted fetal cells and wrote on the show’s website blog in August advising “everyone to boycott Pfizer, Moderna and the Johnson & Johnson to further increase social tension and put pressure on the child killers.”
According to a Washington Post report, Enyart “used to gleefully read obituaries of AIDS sufferers while cranking ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen,” and repeatedly called for women who received an abortion to be sentenced to death.
At least four other right-wing radio hosts have died of Covid-19 since early August after each previously cast doubt on the safety of vaccines or fought against mask mandates and other public health initiatives.
Dick Farrel, a Florida-based conservative radio host and anchor on Newsmax TV who had called vaccines “bogus bullsh*t” and characterized Dr. Anthony Fauci as a “lying freak,” died on August 4 due to complications from Covid-19.
In late August, Marc Bernier, who spoke out against Covid-19 vaccines and even called himself “Mr. Anti-Vax” on his radio show from Daytona Beach, died after battling the virus for weeks.
Jimmy DeYoung Sr., a religious radio broadcaster from Tennessee who published an interview advancing a conspiracy theory that the Pfizer vaccine would make women sterile and asked if the virus and vaccines were forms of governmental control, died on August 18 after contracting Covid.
Phil Valentine, a popular conservative talk radio host in Nashville who voiced vaccine skepticism and mocked Democrats’ efforts to encourage people to get the jab, was killed by the virus in mid-August after reportedly telling his brother he regretted not being a “more vocal advocate” of getting inoculated.
Crucial Quote:
“I know if he were able to tell you this, he would tell you, ‘Go get vaccinated. Quit worrying about the politics. Quit worrying about all the conspiracy theories,’” Mark Valentine, Phil’s brother, told The Tennessean. “He regrets not being more adamant about getting the vaccine. Look at the dadgum data.”
Key Background:
It’s not just radio personalities that have been outspoken against the vaccine, only to be later felled by the virus. Earlier this week, Veronica Wolski, an anti-vaccine activist and QAnon advocate who demanded to be treated with the deworming drug ivermectin, died from complications due to Covid-19 in a Chicago hospital, Forbes reported on Monday. H Scott Apley, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee and city councilman in Dickinson, Texas, who frequently posted anti-mask and anti-vaccine sentiments on his social media, died from Covid-19 complications in early August. A Colorado sheriff’s deputy named Daniel Trujillo was killed by the virus shortly after reportedly posting several anti-vaccination opinions on his social media.
Big Number:
666,816. That’s the number of lives Covid-19 has so far claimed in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic.