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LA Times columnist argues the ‘ghoulish but necessary’ mockery of deaths among ‘anti-vaxxers’

January 11, 2022 | | Print Article

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Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik was dragged on social media after showing his vicious colors on Monday in a column celebrating the deaths of those who criticize the COVID vaccine such as Orange County GOP District Attorney Kelly Ernby who passed away last week from COVID complications.

The headline outrageously read, “Mocking anti-vaxxers’ deaths is ghoulish, yes — but necessary.”

“But let’s not mince words: Her campaigns against public health measures negated whatever good she may have done in her other endeavors,” he wrote, referring to Ernby.

“It may be not a little ghoulish to celebrate or exult in the deaths of vaccine opponents. And it may be proper to express sympathy and solicitude to those they leave behind,” he wrote. “But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled.”

“Nor is it wrong to deny them our sympathy and solicitude, or to make sure it’s known when their deaths are marked that they had stood fast against measures that might have protected others from the fate they succumbed to themselves,” he continued.

“There may be no other way to make sure that the lessons of these teachable moments are heard,” the Pulitzer-Prize winner coldly added.

Ernby’s sad passing was immediately made fun of by leftists on social media, who seemed to take great joy in pointing out that she got what she deserved because she opposed vaccine mandates. Ernby never publicized it, but she was unvaccinated. The cause of her death is not clear but there were COVID complications.

Hiltzik and many others on the left grossly claimed there was a moral imperative to mock anti-vaxxers’ deaths such as Ernby’s.

“On the one hand, a hallmark of civilized thought is the sense that every life is precious,” he wrote. “On the other, those who have deliberately flouted sober medical advice by refusing a vaccine known to reduce the risk of serious disease from the virus, including the risk to others, and end up in the hospital or the grave can be viewed as receiving their just deserts.”

The columnist calls those who oppose vaccine mandates “foes of public health.”

Hiltzik pointed out “that not all people unvaccinated against COVID are alike,” stating that the deaths of those “deceived by the misinformation and disinformation spread by the anti-vaccine crowd,” are lamentable. However, he had no sympathy, just hatred for Ernby.

“As it applies to COVID, the argument [vaccine mandate opposition] undermines communal action at precisely the moment when communal action has emerged as the only obstacle to the spread of a deadly disease,” he penned.

“What’s especially iniquitous about the anti-mandate and anti-vaccination arguments is the damage they are doing to America’s public health system,” Hiltzik remarked. “Republicans like Ernby used COVID vaccines to turn public health into part of their partisan culture war.”

“The consequences are pernicious. They can be measured in overwhelmed emergency rooms and intensive care units, in hospital staffs burned out or rendered missing in action because they’ve been infected. Ernby reportedly died at home, but others of her ilk took up hospital beds that may accordingly have been denied to others in great need of treatment for non-COVID conditions,” he viciously continued.

“As I observed then, pleas for ‘civility’ are a fraud,” he wrote of his critics. “Their goal is to blunt and enfeeble criticism and distract from its truthfulness. Typically, they’re the work of hypocrites.”

“We must view every one of these deaths as a teachable moment. They demonstrate in the most vivid way imaginable the folly of vaccine refusal and of flouting responsible public health measures,” Hiltzik stated. “They underscore the dire consequences of turning public health into a partisan football.”

Hiltzik was righteously dragged on Twitter for his hateful sentiments:

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