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LOS ANGELES (AP) – A man who mocked COVID-19 vaccinations died this week in a Los Angeles area hospital after contracting the virus.
Stephen Harmon was 34 years old.
Harmon died at Corona Regional Medical Center on Wednesday, about an hour’s drive east of Los Angeles.
Stephen Harmon posted pictures of himself in his hospital bed, wrote that he had pneumonia and extremely low oxygen levels and was going to be intubated. In a tweet on Wednesday, Harmon wrote: “I don’t know when I’m going to wake up, please pray,” KCBS-TV reported.
Three days before his death, Harmon tweeted, “If you don’t believe God can heal me with your stupid ventilator, then keep the hell out of my intensive care room, there’s no room here for. fear or lack of faith!
Before his hospitalization, Harmon had mocked vaccination efforts on social media.
“I have 99 problems but a vax isn’t one,” he said in a tweet last month.
On July 8, he posted: “The door-to-door ‘investigators’ of Biden’s vaccines should really be called Witnesses JaCovid. #keepmovingdork.
Harmon’s death was “incredibly demoralizing,” Dr. Oren Friedman, who treats COVID-10 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told KCBS-TV. He said the number of COVID-19 admissions had increased tenfold.
“Virtually everyone who gets sick enough to be admitted to hospital has not been vaccinated,” Friedman said.
California has seen an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections, mainly due to the highly transmissible delta variant that has proliferated since the state completely reopened the economy last month. The vast majority of new cases are in unvaccinated people, and health officials have advocated for people to get vaccinated.
The State Department of Public Health reported nearly 8,000 new cases a day earlier on Friday and the seven-day test positive rate had risen to more than 5% after falling below 1% there. only a few weeks away.
Los Angeles County, which has about a quarter of the state’s population, reported more than 3,000 new cases for the first time since February. There were 655 people with COVID-19 in hospitals, a jump of more than 200 people in a week, according to county figures.
Harmon attended Hillsong Church in Los Angeles.
Founder Brian Houston called him “one of the most generous people I know”.
“As a church, we are focused on the spiritual well-being of the people in each of our local communities. For any medical problem, we strongly encourage members of our church to follow the advice of their doctors, ”Houston said in a statement to KCBS-TV. “Although many of our employees, leaders and congregations have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, we recognize that this is a personal decision that each individual must make with the guidance of medical professionals. “
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