Pastor Joseph Cooper.Photo: news4 jax/ youtube
A Florida church is urging its members to get vaccinated after six parishioners — all of whom were unvaccinated —died of COVID-19in the last ten days.
Impact Church in Jacksonville is reeling from the sudden losses, with most of the deaths occurring in younger members.
“All were healthy, all had no preexisting conditions. Four of them were under the age of 30, and they were all unvaccinated,” Pastor Joseph Coopertold News4Jax.
The influx of positive casesbegan in late July, and along with the six members who died, another 15 to 20 are in the hospital with COVID-19 now, ten more are recovering at home and three to five vaccinated members have also tested positive. Those who died were only in the hospital briefly before succumbing to the virus.
“It’s pain,” Pastor George Davistold News4Jax. “These are actual people that I know, that I have pastored. One 24-year-old kid, I’ve known him since he was a toddler.”
The church requires members towear masks during services, Davis said, and encourages social distancing. But the virushittheir unvaccinated members hard.
In response, Impact Church hosted their second public vaccination clinic on Sunday in conjunction with UF Health, offering anyone 12 and older the Pfizer vaccine. At their first clinic in March, they were able to give 800 people their first dose, and had a line out the door on Sunday.
In response to questions about why they were hosting another vaccination clinic,Davis tweetedthat he’s “tired of crying about and burying people I love.”
“So take the political & religious games somewhere else!!” he added.
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Impact Church also had a panel of experts from the University of Florida on hand at the clinic to answer any questions about the vaccine. They were able to vaccinate more than 200 people, 35% of whom were teenagers,according to theWashington Post.
Florida is currently dealing with one of the biggest surges in COVID-19 cases in the country and has repeatedly broken their own record for most daily cases, which had been set back in January during the holiday surge. On Aug. 3 they had 50,997 new cases, accounting for about a third of all cases in the U.S. that day,according toThe New York Times. Currently, 49% of Floridians are fully vaccinated.
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source: people.com
