A Conservative councilor in the city of Georgia, who previously again denied COVID-19 vaccines, is now urging others to suffer once after their own battle with the virus.
Jim Sells, 71, of Grantville, Georgia, was hospitalized for 16 days because of the virus last month.
He told Newsweek he was a “tough anti-vaccine” before he had to deal with the virus himself.
Sells even urged others not to get vaccinated, as he did not trust himself.
Now, after experiencing the virus himself, and realizing what the current virus outbreak is doing at local hospitals, he is urging people who were told not to get vaccinated to get stung.
Jim Sells (pictured) was ant-vaxx before personally hiring COVID-19 in August and was hospitalized for 16 days. Now, he is pushing for other people in his Georgia community to get vaccinated
Sell (pictured) is the councilor for Grantville, Georgia. He hopes more residents will be vaccinated to alleviate current capacity problems in hospitals across the state. Currently, more than 96% of Georgia ICU beds are used
Sells said surviving his fight against the virus was a gift from God, and that now he would not waste the gift “and would not try to do anything to get the word out to my group of capable conservatives.”
After his experience, he said he planned to “change everything.”
“I prayed for recovery, and all my friends prayed, and the doctors and nurses worked with me,” he told 11 Alive News in Atlanta.
“I said‘ if you can recover from this, you have to change everything, ’” Sells said.
“That must change lives.”
Sells has been out of the hospital for a week and says he only feels like 30% of himself.
It is one of 48 percent of Georgia residents who are not currently vaccinated by Covid.
The state, which does not report daily cases, currently makes an average of about 8,900 new cases a day, an increase of 17% in the last two weeks.
There are also just over 78 deaths each day, 0.73 per 100,000 residents and the seventh highest rate in any state.
The recent increase in cases and deaths has also proven to be a problem for state hospitals.
More than 6,400 people are hospitalized with the virus and 96 percent of the state’s ICU beds are in use, one of the worst situations in any state.
Having seen the situation in hospitals now first hand, Sells understands that vaccinating more Georgians can help stifle a terrible situation.
“Now we don’t have our hospitals, they’re COVID centers,” Sells told Newsweek.
“We need our hospital again. The vaccine is the fastest way.”
However, he has faced some reactions to change his tune, as those he maintained before the cultural war around vaccines are now his opposition.
Sells also blamed social media sites like Facebook for misinforming himself and other people in his community.
‘Social media is killing people. Everything that supports your belief will come your way and you will be part of this cultural group, ”he said.
“I’m taking hell to promote the vaccine, but I won’t let go”
“The hospitals are full and the morgues are full of unvaccinated patients, and I almost made it one.”
In Coweta County, where Sells serves about 35 miles southwest of Atlanta, 35% of residents are fully vaccinated and just under 40% have received at least one vaccine.
The county has recorded 18,358 cases of COVID-19 and 256 deaths from the virus since the pandemic began.