Loomer, anti-vaxxer and GOP candidate, says she has COVID
Laura Loomer, an anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist running for Congress against incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. Dan Webster of Lake County, says she has tested positive for COVID-19.
Despite feeling “like I got hit by a bus” and she was “in so much pain,” Loomer wrote Thursday on the social media platform Gettr that she still won’t get vaccinated.
Loomer, a social media provocateur, has been banned from most platforms in part for her Islamophobic statements and support of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and far-right activist Faith Goldy, who was banned for posting racist videos. She also has spread conspiracy theories about mass shootings and has been arrested multiple times for trespassing.
On the conservative platform Parler, she wrote in December, “I hope I get COVID just so I can prove to people I’ve had bouts of food poisoning that are more serious and life-threatening than a hyped-up virus. Have you ever eaten bad fajitas? That will kill you faster than COVID.”
On Gettr, founded by Donald Trump acolyte
Jason Miller, she wrote Thursday, “Yesterday I was feeling ill. I had a fever, chills, a runny nose, sore throat, nausea and severe body aches that made my whole body feel like I got hit by a bus, and after sleeping for a few hours, my symptoms started to remind me of how I felt when I had a bad case of the flu a few years ago. So I took a COVID test and it came back POSITIVE.”
She added, “I have not taken the COVID-19 vaccine, and I don’t plan on ever taking it because it is unsafe and ineffective.”
She said she was taking Azithromycin, an antibiotic that one recent study said was not effective in treating
COVID symptoms, a dietary supplement called OrthoMune, and Hydroxychloroquine, the antimalaria drug pushed by Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis and others last year.
“Luckily, I live in Florida where Governor DeSantis has opened statewide Regeneron monoclonal antibody treatment centers,” Loomer added. “This morning I received the Regeneron treatment for COVID.”
The Daily Beast reported Loomer sounded a much more worrying note in messages on the app Telegram late Thursday.
“Just pray for me please,” she wrote, according to the Beast. “Can’t even begin to explain how brutal the body aches and nausea that come with COVID are. I am in so much pain.”
Loomer, who ran against Democratic U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel in a heavily blue district in South Florida last year, is running instead in the GOP primary against Webster for 2022.
Webster, who has been elected six times to Congress, currently represents northern Lake County and parts of Marion, Sumter, Hernando and Citrus counties. But new districts will be drawn by the Legislature for 2022.