Luke Letlow was described as a “mainstream Republican”, whatever that means any more. It used to be I’d picture an Eisenhower Republican when I heard those words — a cautious conservative. Now the words say to me “someone not quite as openly racist as Louie Gohmert”. Anyway, Letlow got elected to congress in Louisiana, where he did things like this:
As the coronavirus ravaged Louisiana, Letlow urged residents to follow social distancing guidelines and to listen to doctors, noting that Abraham, a physician, had returned to Louisiana to help treat covid-19 patients.
But photos on his Twitter page show he had an inconsistent record of wearing masks while campaigning, sometimes covering his face at meet-and-greets but also speaking indoors without a mask on to rooms of mask-free residents. At a candidate forum in October, Letlow urged the state to ease pandemic restrictions, saying, “We’re now at a place if we do not open our economy, we’re in real danger.”
You know where this is going. He’s dead of COVID.
After his symptoms worsened earlier this month, Letlow was first taken to St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe, where he sounded a hopeful note on Dec. 21, tweeting that he was “confident” in his recovery. Two days later, he was taken to a Shreveport hospital and placed in an intensive care unit, where he was treated with remdesivir and steroids, according to a statement from his office.
This week, he was in critical condition but showing signs of recovery, G.E. Ghali, the chancellor of LSU Health Shreveport, told the Advocate. But on Tuesday, he suffered a “cardiac event” and died, Ghali said. Asked whether any underlying conditions might have contributed to his death, Ghali said, “None. All covid related,” the Advocate reported.
He was only 41, with two kids, and that’s a hard death. I have sympathy for the man, but not his politics, and it’s his politics that killed him.
Remdesivir has not done uniformly well in clinical trials.
Study Finds Antiviral Meds Like Remdesivir Have No Effect on COVID-19
Letlow was laid low. Luke ran out of luck.
Sorry, couldn’t resist.
During the last pandemic, Swine flu 2007, fundie xians died in higher numbers than the general population. One reason is known, they were less likely to use the Swine flu vaccine that was rapidly developed.
They are now doing it again in this pandemic.
Everyone has lost count of the number of Covid-19 deniers and pandemic survival measures deniers that have caught Covid-19 virus and died. It’s a lot. Even at this late date, 9 months in with 19.5 million infections and 340,000 dead, I still see and hear about these cases.
Religion kills. Ignorance kills.
I still can’t figure out why none of these conspiracy theorists are spreading the theory that vaccine scare-mongering is a liberal plot to persuade conservatives not to get vaccinated so there’s more vaccine for us, and they’ll just die off.
Nope. Can’t muster sympathy at all. I’ll save my sympathy for the innocent people who did take this pandemic seriously that he may have infected through his selfish refusal to take this pandemic seriously. I no longer have room in my tank to have sympathy for morally bankrupt people who bring about their own misfortune.
Here is a classic example of what passes for thinking among fundie xians.
It is happening everywhere and has been since the start of the pandemic.
This church decided to do nothing about the Covid-19 pandemic. Stayed open, won’t get tested, won’t cooperate with the Coos Bay health contact tracers.
And now they have their very own mini-pandemic and everyone is sick with…Covid-19.
Have they learned anything from this learning experience. No.
There are a lot of terms that describe people like this. Stupid, irresponsible, delusional. Just call them what they are though. Plague rats.
raven@6,
No, that’s very unfair to plague rats: they don’t have the information or cognitive capacity to avoid spreading disease.
Guess he wasn’t on Trump’s list for the Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment (whether that works or not, it is a near perfect dystopian plot device; a pandemic accompanied by a miracle cure available only to the privileged and their loyal minions).
Next what happens is that the Republican party will deny his existence as effectively as they did Herman Cain. Or maybe not. Letlow made the clever decision to be born white. We’ll see.
“he was treated with remdesivir and steroids” – also prayers…
“We’re not shutting down because of fear, because the government said we have to, or anything else. ”
In fact, they would have been permitted to hold a Christmas Eve service. The current restrictions for Coos County faith institutions are 25% capacity or 100 people max, whichever is smaller, and that hasn’t changed for at least a month. Their own actions are what prevented them being able to worship together.
After being vigilant in protecting myself and my family for the last 10 months, I have no sympathy for those that purposely flout or encourage others to flout the advice and restrictions of public health authorities.
expat@11 kome@5 Yes and yes, but I am going to feel sympathy for his kids at least, who almost certainly had no agency in this situation and are presumably worse off without a father, whatever I might think of him. (There, I’m done and perhaps I should reflect on everyone else something horrible has happened to.)
That he did something idiotic and died is worse that doing something idiotic and surviving. I doubt it will even serve as an object lesson, though I suppose in that case it could do some good. I will resist (though it is difficult) the urge to treat this as karma. Just a bad situation all around.
Letlow was new, just a congressman-elect: his Nov. 3 election went to a run-off, which he won over the previous congressman sometime in December. He was going to be sworn in on, I believe, Sunday.
That was one eventful month: win a seat in congress in a run-off, days later test positive, two days later enter the hospital, four days later enter the ICU, die six days later.
I blame Trump. Had he taken up even one sane position on this pandemic, all these people would have followed.
I do feel sorry for someone who goes out in the rain without rain gear and gets all wet not because they got wet but because they were so nuts( stupid, obstinate, arrogant, suckered?) but because they did it anyway even when told it was raining.
how do you help such fools?
uncle frogy
Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh somehow remains alive. There really are limits to my sympathy.
I can’t help wondering… Any chance he attended a White House party and caught it there…?
I spent almost a month arguing with one of these anti masker idiots . Luckily it was online or I think I would have tried to slap some sense into him. My sympathy node for deliberately stupid is worn down to a useless nub right now ! That also goes for evolution deniers, global warming deniers , misogynistic fundies, other science deniers , tRump supporters, and racists .