There have been quite a few publicized self-owns regarding COVID. We almost got one with the orange man himself but he lucked out.
This death flew under the radar because of election coverage plus his family was trying their best to not reveal his cause of death.
They did not want his sickness and eventual death to be "politicized" even though he politicized COVID measures during his life.
Though the family did not immediately release details about Edwards’ death,
Mitch Edwards said during his father’s funeral Nov. 7 that he had contracted the virus. The lawmaker was Wyoming’s first known public official to die from complications of COVID-19.
On Oct. 23, Edwards was on the couch watching television and found he had trouble catching his breath, his son said. His wife of 44 years took him to the hospital in Gillette at around 10:30 that night. Edwards tested positive for COVID-19.
A lung scan showed he had COVID-pneumonia — a condition of severe cases of the disease in which the lungs fill with fluid and become inflamed, leading to breathing difficulties.
The lawmaker’s family was unable to be with him at the end, his son said. Edwards was given supplemental oxygen and initially seemed to recover — another illusionary step in the rollercoaster of COVID-19’s attack on the body. Hospital workers told the Edwards that Roy was their “healthiest patient,” Mitch Edwards said in remarks made at his father’s Nov. 7 funeral service, which was streamed online.
“
Our family was not disclosing the illness when he was in the hospital because we didn’t want it to be politicized and we wanted to focus on his recovery,” Mitch Edwards said. Both during his father’s illness and after his death, “we wanted to be able to do what we needed to do as a family,” he said.
Since the pandemic’s start, both Edwards and his pastor and colleague Clem stridently opposed government measures to quell the virus’s spread. In September, Clem and Edwards were among lawmakers who questioned Wyoming Public Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist at a legislative committee meeting. Edwards echoed conservative sentiments that the virus’s impact was overblown for political reasons and would vanish after the November election.
Edwards was aware of the virus’s threat but remained opposed to government measures that closed businesses and kept people apart from each other, his son said.
“
He told my mom that he would rather die of COVID than live or die in fear,” Mitch Edwards said at the funeral service. “We are devastated that he died but we are glad that he felt that way,” he said.
https://www.wyofile.com/edwards-son-describes-how-covid-19-came-on-quickly/
He told my mom that he would rather die of COVID than live or die in fear
The above is surely just empty bluster during a safer time when he was "sure" he would never get it. I doubt he was feeling this way on his deathbed.
But you know what?
I'm still alive. I'm not living in fear either when I take precautionary COVID measures. Just like I'm not living in fear every time I put on a seatbelt.
