A conservative Nashville radio host who mocked vaccines and broadcast erroneous information about the coronavirus has died of COVID-19. Phil Valentine was 61 years old.
Although Valentine downplayed the effectiveness of the vaccines and even recorded a mocking parody song, he reversed his opinion while in the hospital, advising members of his family. that they took the puncture.
He had said of the vaccine: “I have a very low risk that A) I have COVID and B) that he will die if I do. Why would I risk having a heart attack or paralysis with the vaccine? “He also said at the time that he had taken the antiparasitic drug ivermectin, intended for animals.
Valentine hosted a regular radio program on 99.7 WWTN-FM in Nashville. His station wrote in a statement: “We are very sorry to report that our friend and friend Phil Valentine is dead. Please keep the Valentine family in your thoughts and prayers. ”
It had been on the air since the 1990s.
His brother Mark, who appeared on the same station late last month, asked listeners to take COVID’s threat seriously, saying, “For those who listen, I know that if I were able to tell you this , I would tell you, “Go get vaccinated. Stop worrying about politics. Stop worrying about all the conspiracy theories. “
Phil would like his listeners to know that while he has never been an ‘anti-cowboy’, he regrets not being more vehemently ‘pro-vaccine’ and hopes to be able to defend that position more vigorously as soon as he returns to the air, which we all hope it will be soon, ”his family said in a statement after being hospitalized for the first time.
Before she fell ill with the virus, Valentine had spoken out against the mask’s warrants and written a parody of the Beatles’ song “Taxman,” called “Vaxman,” which mocked the preventative. He sang it on the air.
“Let me tell you how it will be, and I don’t care if you agree, because I’m the Vaxman, yes, I’m the Vaxman,” he sang. “If you don’t like me coming back, thank you for not holding me.”
Valentine is one of several public figures in recent months who have criticized the vaccine only for detecting serious cases of COVID-19. Two weeks ago, another conservative radio host, Dick Farrel, died from the virus in Florida.
The most contagious variant of Delta coronavirus has caused an increase in infections across the country over the past month, especially in the south, and the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths have occurred among those who have not received a vaccine. CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has called the recent spike “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”