A televangelist’s flu-season advice: “Inoculate yourself with the word of God”

Desdemona Despair

By Marwa Eltagouri
6 February 2018

(The Washington Post) – At least 53 children across the country have died during a nasty flu outbreak that is already one of the worst on record, even though the season typically peaks in February.

But Texas televangelist Gloria Copeland thinks there’s nothing to worry about. In fact, the minister who advised President Trump’s campaign says she doesn’t believe there’s such thing as a flu season.

“We got a duck season, a deer season, but we don’t have a flu season,” she said in a video posted to Facebook last week. “And don’t receive it when somebody threatens you with, ‘Everyone’s getting the flu!’ ”

Her remarks come as physicians insist people get their flu shots, as 80 percent of the children who died did not have a flu shot. The flu vaccine does not guarantee against illness, but experts say that data suggests that vaccinations make the flu milder.

It’s not the first time Copeland — who told her viewers in the video that “Jesus himself gave us the flu shot” and “redeemed us from the curse of flu” — has insisted that people put their health in God’s hands. She once bragged during a conference that she and her husband did not need prescription drugs because the Lord heals all illnesses, according to the Associated Press. […]

As The Washington Post’s Lena H. Sun reported, thousands of people have been hospitalized with the flu since the season began 1 October 2018. A report for the week ending 27 January 2018 shows that the rate of people seeking care is on a par with that of the swine-flu pandemic of 2009. CDC officials predict that the number of pediatric deaths is likely to approach or exceed the 148 deaths reported during the especially severe flu season of 2014 and 2015. [more]

A televangelist’s flu-season advice: ‘Inoculate yourself with the word of God’