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GOP lawmaker who once spurned masks urges people to take covid-19 seriously after eight-month illnes
Source: Washington Post
GOP lawmaker who once spurned masks urges people to take covid-19 seriously after eight-month illness
By Kim Bellware
Today at 4:41 p.m. EDT
A Tennessee legislator who went from unmasked gatherings with fellow legislators to being placed on ventilator days later has emerged with a message for constituents after a harrowing eight-month experience with long-haul covid-19:
Take the coronavirus seriously.
“It is a disease that wants to kill us,” state Rep. David Byrd (R) said in a statement Friday. Byrd, 63, described an ordeal that included 55 days on a ventilator in which covid-19 ravaged his memory, his muscles and his organs — it led to him having a liver transplant in June; his condition was so grave that his family at least once began planning for his funeral. Stressing that covid-19 is real and “very dangerous,” Byrd encouraged people to get vaccinated.
“This is not an issue that should divide us,” he wrote.
Before Byrd became ill around Thanksgiving, his attitude about the novel coronavirus, which can cause the disease covid-19, included a June 2020 vote for a resolution that accused the “mainstream media” of sensationalizing pandemic coverage. In November, he was among the House Republican Caucus members who gathered for an in-person multiday retreat amid surging infections statewide.
-snip-
By Kim Bellware
Today at 4:41 p.m. EDT
A Tennessee legislator who went from unmasked gatherings with fellow legislators to being placed on ventilator days later has emerged with a message for constituents after a harrowing eight-month experience with long-haul covid-19:
Take the coronavirus seriously.
“It is a disease that wants to kill us,” state Rep. David Byrd (R) said in a statement Friday. Byrd, 63, described an ordeal that included 55 days on a ventilator in which covid-19 ravaged his memory, his muscles and his organs — it led to him having a liver transplant in June; his condition was so grave that his family at least once began planning for his funeral. Stressing that covid-19 is real and “very dangerous,” Byrd encouraged people to get vaccinated.
“This is not an issue that should divide us,” he wrote.
Before Byrd became ill around Thanksgiving, his attitude about the novel coronavirus, which can cause the disease covid-19, included a June 2020 vote for a resolution that accused the “mainstream media” of sensationalizing pandemic coverage. In November, he was among the House Republican Caucus members who gathered for an in-person multiday retreat amid surging infections statewide.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/01/david-byrd-covid/
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