WaPo: “When H. Scott Apley died at 45 of covid-19, he became a face of vaccine refusal by the political right. A GoFundMe drive for his wife and baby son drew scorn as the Dickinson City Council member’s social media posts circulated.
“I wish I lived in the area!” the Houston-area member of the Texas Republican Party’s governing board wrote this spring about a “mask burning” party in Cincinnati. “You are an absolute enemy of a free people,” he once replied on Twitter to a doctor’s post celebrating the effectiveness of Pfizer’s shots against the coronavirus.
In the GOP circles where Apley was well known, however, there was little mention of covid-19 or how to prevent it. Two days after mourning their former vice chairman in a Facebook post that did not say what put him on a ventilator, the Galveston County Republican Party shared a far-right website’s medical-evidence-free claim that immunization against the coronavirus had killed a young conservative activist. “Another tragedy – From the Vaccine!!!!!” they warned.
Apley’s hospitalization and death showcased the bitterness of the country’s divide over coronavirus vaccination, and over how to bridge it, as the pandemic makes personal tragedy inseparable from politics. The Dickinson, Tex., council member’s community offers a stark counterpoint amid a slew of stories about people who urge others to get vaccinated after losing a skeptical loved one to covid-19.”