MAGA IS A DEATH CULT:

Skill Wilson had amassed more than three decades of knowledge as a paramedic, first in Memphis and then in Fayette County. Two places that felt like night and day. [...]

The nature of the virus makes the elderly and people with underlying health conditions -- including hypertension, diabetes and obesity, all of which beset Black people at higher rates and earlier in life than White people -- particularly vulnerable to severe illness and death.

That wasn't Skill.

The virus also attacks unvaccinated adults -- who polls show are more likely to be Republicans -- with a ferocity that puts them at a much higher risk of infection and death.

That was Skill.

He joined the choir of critics opposing vaccination requirements, his rants in front of the television eventually wearing on Hollie, who, even if she agreed, grew tired of listening and declared their home "covid-talk free."

So, she said, Skill commiserated with like-minded people in Facebook groups and on Parler and Rumble, the largely unmoderated social networking platforms popular with conservatives.

"We're Republicans, and 100 percent believe that it's each individual's choice, their freedom," when it comes to getting a coronavirus shot, Hollie said in January. "We decided to err on the side of not doing it and accept the consequences. And now, here we are in the middle of planning the funeral."

New immune-evading covid variants could fuel a winter surge

Capt. Julian Greaves Wilson Jr., known to everybody as Skill, died of covid Jan. 23, a month after becoming infected with the coronavirus. He fell ill not long after transporting a covid patient to the hospital. At the time he died, infection rates in Fayette County had soared to 40.5 percent among people taking coronavirus tests.

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