The life and tragic death of John Eyers - a fitness fanatic who refused the vaccine

[bullwinkle428]

She can’t remember how the argument about the Covid vaccine started. “John started saying really crazy things that didn’t make sense,” she says. “About how people were only getting the vaccine for free McDonald’s, and there was formaldehyde in it.” The rest of the family remonstrated with him, pulling out their phones to factcheck what he was saying. But John was unmoving. “He kept saying: ‘I won’t be a guinea pig.’”

From January onwards, John struggled with his mental health. Covid restrictions weighed heavily on him. He hated not being able to go to the gym, hated not being able to go climbing, hated not seeing his friends. He lived alone, having broken up with a girlfriend at Christmas, and was lonely. He confided in his sister. “I was really worried about him,” Jenny says. “He was in a bad place. I had to call him every day to make sure he was OK.” Their grandmother died in March. When Jenny saw him at the funeral, she was horrified. “He’d lost so much weight,” she says.

Jonathan thinks this is, in part, what drove his friend’s Covid scepticism. “He was frustrated at the way he couldn’t go and do normal things,” he says. “He didn’t want another lockdown, or to be in a situation where he wasn’t able to go and see people.” John felt that Covid was real, but that it had been dramatically overstated by the authorities. Nobody he knew in Southport had contracted Covid. If he got the virus, he would be fine. “It got to the point where he refused to wear a mask at all,” says Jenny.

Doctors put John on dialysis to clear out the toxins, but by this point many of his organs were failing and he had unsurvivably low oxygen levels. He expended an inconceivably huge metabolic effort to stay alive. “Although it looks like someone is just lying there asleep, the amount of work they’re doing is really impressive,” says Lawton. He compares it to walking a marathon for every day the patient is hospitalised. Eventually, John exhausted his physiological reserve. His body was oxygen-deprived and wrung out. His heart stopped beating and he died. Before he died, John told the doctor treating him how much he regretted not getting the vaccine. “The doctor said that he was beating himself up so much before they put him on the ventilator,” Jenny says. “He was saying: ‘Why didn’t I get vaccinated? Why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I listen?’”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine

A long read, but well worth it.

[Claustrum]

1. Where was my free McDonald's meals?

Kind of like where are my Soro's checks.....

[Crunchy Frog]

21. I didn't even get my free Krispy Kreme donuts.

They left my state before I could take advantage.

[Scrivener7]

2. "He didn't want another lockdown, he didn't want to be in a situation where he wasn't able to go and

see people." "He was frustrated at the way he couldn't go and do normal things."

WHO WASN'T FRUSTRATED???? THIS IS A PLAGUE!!! PLAGUES ARE HARD!!!

Why do these people not get that what we want and what IS are two different things right now? Who are these people who simply can't live with WHAT IS when it doesn't coincide with what they want??

[secondwind]

4. It boggles the mind..............

[Sympthsical]

10. Could you imagine our society dealing with WW II?

With the rationing and other restrictions?

We live in a world where people go berserk if their Starbucks order is wrong.

[Scrivener7]

14. I was thinking the same thing.

I was at an exit from a parkway in my town the other day. It is a slow exit and often backs up, so you are often waiting in line for 6 or 5 minutes before you can merge onto the next parkway.

So of course as you are sitting there, there are the creeps who block traffic to cut the line. That's something that has happened for years. But this time there was something new in the level of creepiness.

A fire truck came along, sirens blaring. Everyone in the line moved to the right to let it pass. SIX cars - count them, SIX - pulled out of the line to get IN FRONT OF THE FIRE TRUCK and cut past everyone. IN FRONT OF IT! I know people often do that to get behind the fire truck but IN FRONT??? That's a new one on me.

TFG unleashed a new level of selfishness and self-centeredness into our society. I wonder if that genie can ever be pushed back into the bottle.

[Sympthsical]

19. I have a napkin theory

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who are internally socialized and those who are externally socialized.

The internally socialized will observe social norms without any prompting. They do it because it's what they've been wired or trained to do. I'm internally socialized. No idea why. Parents, self-conscious personality, Midwestern culture. There are a billion reasons someone might be. But I'm always polite, never lash out in public. Just generally muddle through the day, whereupon I get home and let loose several cutting, expletive-filled observations about people to whomever is around.

The externally socialized only observe norms because external social pressure keeps them in check. Their impulse is to be a self-absorbed asshole, but friends, family, and strangers wouldn't receive it well, so they behave. Like a child who knows they're being watched. We all know these types. They might be fine at work, but then a blistering douche canoe at home.

Covid isolation took away a lot of external social pressure for a lot of people. The usual reinforcements to not be a raging dick just weren't there for a long period of time. Once they were unleashed upon society again, we're getting an eyeful. You mentioned traffic. We also have stories about restaurants and stores. Really, anywhere in public. People just seem to be worse.

I think it's the lack of socialization. The guard rails came off. And it can be very damaging. I have two teenaged nephews who lived with us for the first year because their single mom is a nurse. No school, no going out with friends. The changes in their personalities was highly perceptible. One became incredibly irritable at everything (even beyond what you'd expect out of a teenager) and the other fell into a pretty severe depression.

I think we're facing a mental health crisis. I think we were before Covid, but the pandemic just aggravated it all to an 11.

[Scrivener7]

24. The socialization theory actually makes a lot of sense. I hope your nephews

come back to themselves and find the way forward. They were lucky they had a place to go while their mom dealt with it. Was she in the line of fire? That could have affected them too.

[hibbing]

35. I've been feeling the same way for months

Good gosh, there were gas rations, food rations and all other kinds of restrictions during WWII. These people have a hissy fit because they are asked to wear a mask for 10 minutes.

Peace

[RobinA]

40. I Have Thought

this frequently, and I'm a major complainer about this COVID marathon. Then I think about London during the Blitz. Air raids every night... Shoot me now. I don't think I would have been very resilient back then. I might do better if I were younger and didn't see my life frittering away while I can't do things I planned to do because of freakin' COVID.

[LiberalFighter]

50. They had it more difficult during that time period even without WWII.

Too many have it much easier now. And don't care about making society better for everyone. It is only about themselves.

I say part of the problem increased in the early 90s with the asshole radio talk show host. He had no respect for decency or truth.

[Martin Eden]

12. The people complaining the loudest about COVID restrictions ...

... are the ones who are prolonging the necessity for restrictions by refusing to get vaccinated and wear a mask.

[wnylib]

37. I think that the inability to

reconcile external reality with internal subjective wants is what drives people's opposition to masking, distancing, and vaccinations. These are people who have always thrived on exerting their will over their environment, regardless of socio-economic status. Some are well off and accustomed to having their own way. Others are poor and have had to struggle hard against so many odds that they believe that their own willpower and determination will defeat the virus.

Many are simply uninformed about how vaccines work so they are easily influenced by crazy disinformation.

[Caliman73]

49. The worst part is...

If the stupid people would have worn masks, stayed socially distant, and gotten vaccinated WHEN it had been suggested, we could have returned to a sense of "normalcy" a lot earlier and with a lot less of the complications and ongoing bullshit we are dealing with now.

There are places in the world who did that, and while nowhere is perfect and we have seen surges and responses everywhere, there are certainly places that have fared WAY better than the US has, because they did not have as many stupid people who got their advice from former MMA referees, multimillionaire frozen food heirs, and stupid politicians with a partisan agenda instead of respected medical journals and trusted sources.

[Scrivener7]

51. This. And these people have done this to all of us, not just themselves.

[Caliman73]

57. Absolutely.

I said early on in the pandemic, as there were people here on DU that would say things like, "good" when a right winger or denier, or other adversary, would get sick and/or die; if it were only affecting that particular population, or there was some kind of bubble that prevented it from spreading to the rest of us, I would agree. The problem is that I can take all protective measures possible but if we have 40% or 50% of the population that is not taking the situation seriously, then the problem will never really go away and the probability of complications goes up significantly.

[dchill]

3. It really is too bad there's no way to vaccinate against Trumpism.

[Caliman73]

52. Too much credit to Trump.

While he exacerbated the phenomenon, this strain of anti-science, anti-government, anti-intellectual nonsense has been around longer than Trump. What Trump did was make it okay by nature of him having been the president. He is not smart enough, or powerful enough to have actually started anything. He took the power inherent in the office of the president, and he used that to promote horrible things. Remember that Fox and right wing propaganda (Limbaugh, WND, Drudge, Breitbart, etc...) have been around since the 90's pumping away daily with disinformation and exhorting their listeners not to trust Liberals, government, or anyone not directly them.

This is been in the works for decades but Republicans have typically been less blatant about it.

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

The falsehoods that John repeated to his family and friends in the months leading up to his death are common tropes in online anti-vaccine spaces and easy to find: the vaccine has dangerous levels of formaldehyde in it; the vaccine is experimental; people are only getting the vaccine for free McDonald’s.

“The best thing that people can do is realise that social media platforms are fundamentally unsafe environments to gain facts about a pandemic that might kill you,” says Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “Social media contains vast amounts of misinformation that mingles seamlessly with good information. The misinformation might kill you.”

John was a heavy user of social media. “He was what I’d call a Facebook ranter,” says Jenny. Occasionally, she would challenge him on the content of his posts about Covid. When he was at her house, Jenny told him off for spending too much time on his phone. “He wouldn’t put his phone down,” she says.

Ahmed is scathing about the social media companies that profit from misinformation. “They don’t want you to find the truth,” he says. “They want you to keep scrolling. If you find the truth, you don’t need to scroll any more. They want you to keep scrolling and arguing and looking for more bullshit.”

[Aristus]

6. Tragic?

A stupid man took a stupid risk and died a stupid death. I don't see the tragedy here.

[CaptainTruth]

22. To me, the only tragedy is the toll his stupidity took on others.

I'm sure there will be friends & family who suffer from losing him, & he put healthcare workers in the position of risking their own health & making a valiant effort to save his life. They didn't deserve that & they are also victims of his stupidity.

[RobinA]

41. Nice

It amazes me that you work in health care.

[Scrivener7]

44. People in healthcare are the ones that have been put in the greatest danger by these deniers.

They have been killed in massive numbers by these deniers.

And the deniers keep going on their merry ways spreading and mutating this disease and putting healthcare people, already brought by the deniers to the limits of human endurance, at further risk.

Spend a week on a COVID ward. Then criticize healthcare workers' struggles to empathize with deniers who are killing them.

[RobinA]

54. I Work In

a forensic psychiatric hospital and have been to work every working day of this fiasco. Our patients come from jails. I don't hate on staff who isn't vaccinated, and I certainly don't hate on patients.

[Scrivener7]

55. Well, good for you.

[Aristus]

60. Ask any medical provider what diseases he or she hates the most

and they will most likely say: “The preventable ones.”

I can’t possibly be the only medical provider who gets tired of having to arm-wrestle his patients best two-out-of-three just to get them to get their vaccines.

And once again, when the inevitable result of ignoring sound medical advice occurred, why did he then seek medical help? Hadn’t he already demonstrated his distrust of medical science?

Not every medical provider is going to be meltingly sympathetic toward someone willfully flouting medical advice.

[modrepub]

7. Social Media Loneliness

Other than here, I'm rarely on any social media platforms. And I try to remember this area can be an echo chamber at some point (reenforcing what I want to hear).

Humans are social primates; we need interactions with each other. To me it seems most social media is like consuming empty calories. The more time you spend on social media the more lonely you seem to be. Starved of real nourishing interactions. You just seem to wither away, consumed into some dark vortex you can't escape.

I wouldn't mind so much if these folks would sulk away in some type of D & D alter reality but their actions endanger all of us. They provide perfect breeding ground for COVID, allowing the virus to spread and mutate (into possibly worse forms). Then they bog down our already anemic health-care system exposing our first responders and the rest of us. Sorry, but these folks are dangerous to all of us.

[llmart]

18. Spot on analysis.

Great post.

[LeftInTX]

53. I got the impression, he may have turned to social media & developed mental illness due to lockdown

When someone is a fitness fanatic, they kinda go crazy when they can't exercise.

[Scrivener7]

59. I don't really get this. He wasn't tied up. He could have exercised all he wanted.

Perhaps not the way he was used to, but nothing was stopping him from exercising.

[LeftInTX]

61. My brain still isn't working the same as it was pre-lockdown

I've got health problems, fibromyalgia and was dependent on certain types of specific exercise for management....

I have not been the same....

[Scrivener7]

62. I'm sorry. Are you able to get back to those types of exercise yet?

[orwell]

8. He did listen...

...to propaganda from MAGAts and Facebook/YouTube "researchers".

...and now he's dead.

[SayItLoud]

9. I look at it this way:

One less to spread lies.

[BradBo]

11. He earned his Herman Cann award at least.

[johnthewoodworker]

13. Another scientific moron died. What a loss.

[sarchasm]

15. This whole Covid schadenfreude thing is getting to me ...

AIDS was bad enough, now this. I refuse to feel delight in anyone's demise from this horrible disease.

[wnylib]

39. I agree completely.

[RobinA]

42. It's Especially Interesting

coming from so-called liberals.

[Elessar Zappa]

47. I'm not going to have empathy or sympathy

for people who are actively killing themselves and others by refusing a simple shot. You can feel sorry for them if you want, I certainly won’t.

[Hav]

46. Interesting perspective

I was about to reply that this isn't only about people dying due to stupid personal actions, it's that they spread misinformation and engage in behavior that is a direct threat to the well-being of others and that people are just sick of idiots making everything worse with their irresponsible behavior.

But as you mentioned AIDS, for those living back then when it was stigmatized and who saw their friends die, I guess you heard almost the same arguments back then and found them just as repulsive. I never saw it from that perspective.

[Elessar Zappa]

48. The AIDS epidemic

was absolutely not the same thing.

[snort]

16. Wahh

[IronLionZion]

17. If a super fit lean dude can die of this

then I don't stand a chance. This Thanksgiving I'm thankful for my 3 vaccine doses.

Article says it attacked his lungs first, then his liver and kidneys. Nasty way to go.

[Claustrum]

27. Even if you were to survive, imagine the long term health effect it would have on you.

[IronLionZion]

38. I imagine there are tons of COVID survivors with health problems they don't know about

all the while assuming everything is fine if they had mild symptoms.

[Crunchy Frog]

20. I can't bring myself to view this as a tragedy.

He made a choice for himself and experienced the consequences.

[Hortensis]

23. Yet another anti-vaxxer dead of obvious mental health problems.

Studies show high levels of various types of mental dysfunction among rabid anti-vaxxers. Big surprise.

Some people, formerly functional, are especially vulnerable to pernicious campaigns to radicalize and detach them from reality.

Why is callously ignoring those huge realities so common? Would it interfere with demonizing "them" to see them as BOTH victims and victimizers?

You bet.

Is it honest to ignore obvious mental disorder in order to sneer at those who've become objects of one's hate?

No.

Is it smart or decent?

No and no.

Is that how "they" behave?

Yes.

[andym]

25. Not a MAGAT, but a British social media addict

Article has an interesting explanation for why people don't listen to science:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/30/life-tragic-death-john-eyers-fitness-fanatic-who-refused-covid-vaccine
“There is a huge asymmetry with risk,” says Dr Tom Stafford, a psychology lecturer at the University of Sheffield. “If you can get away with things that are low probability, you don’t know how dangerous they are until it’s too late.” Stafford uses the example of driving without a seatbelt: most of the time, you will be absolutely fine. But the one time you are in an accident, things might get very bad very quickly.
...
In 2009, Stafford co-authored a paper that surveyed people who lived on brownfield sites that might have been contaminated with pollutants. The survey asked the residents whom they trusted to tell them about the risks associated with living on the land. While most of the people trusted scientists to tell them the truth, they were almost as likely to take their information from family and friends, despite their total lack of expertise. “It wasn’t that they didn’t trust the expertise of the scientists,” Stafford says. “They knew that scientists knew about pollution. They just thought that the scientists didn’t have their interests at heart, whereas they knew that family and friends did.”

The internet replicates this fundamental human impulse – to trust family and friends almost as much as we trust experts – at scale. “We feel a connection to the people who are telling us things in a way that we don’t feel a connection to the Centers for Disease Control or the Joint Council on Vaccination and Immunisation,” Stafford says.

In the age of social media, we don’t even need to have met the people we trust as much as established experts. “That’s why social media is so dangerous,” says Stafford. “Because people share that emotional connection with influencers they might never have met. But it’s an asymmetrical intimacy. I may think I know that vlogger and they are talking to me. But really they’re talking to millions of people – and the advertisers generating them their revenue.”

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. Excellent observations. Thanks for posting. . . . nt

[PatrickforB]

34. Ditto to Bernard. Thank you for an informative post.

[njhoneybadger]

26. Why all the fucking hatred here?

This is not healthy.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. Because anti-vaxxers are killing innocent people around them, shitting on health care workers who ar

Because the anti-vaxxers are killing innocent people around them, shitting on health care workers who are treating them, propagating variants, holding the economy back, and perpetuating numerous destructive lies.

[Aristus]

63. Not to mention verbally, and sometimes physically, assaulting people around them

who wear a mask.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. Hate is merely toxic. Anti-vaxxing & anti-masking are deadly. . . . nt

[Ray Bruns]

29. Culling of the herd, nothing to see here. Move along.

[PatrickforB]

32. You know, Bullwinkle, as poignant as this story is, I have a really hard time

feeling much of anything for John.

I'm 62, in a high risk group, and have gotten my vaccinations and my booster (Pfizer). On Friday, I may have been exposed, and for several days have had flu-like symptoms, though have not lost my taste and smell. My wife and I just went and got a drive-through COVID test.

If I am positive, hopefully there are a couple of treatment options, such as monoclonal antibodies. And hopefully, with my crummy, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays, I will have access to such a thing.

But in the meantime, say I'm negative. Great. But I'm still 62 and in a high risk group. What if I have a heart attack, or much worse, a stroke, and there are no beds available in the ICU because of guys like John.

So, yeah, may he have eternal rest from the cares and woes of this life, and be enfolded in the light of divine love...but when he was here...I'm gonna say it...he was a selfish asshole.

[nolabear]

33. Covid has brought out many mental illnesses. It IS tragic.

Yes, the majority of vaccine avoidants are not mentally ill. They are all kinds of things—gullible, dumb, rage-filled, looking for someone to blame for their failures, etc. But I suspect this man has spent his life staving off a real breakdown in some relatively healthy, if obsessive, ways. Denied all those he lost the fight. I won’t come down on him, or those genuinely unable to cope and who the virus has broken.

[Act_of_Reparation]

43. Pseudoscientific hogwash is a huge part of the fitness subculture.

Anti-vaxx sentiment had strong roots there long before COVID was a thing.

[nolabear]

45. I agree. Anorexia, exercise obsession, bizarre supplements and treatments, all kinds of things.

And I think many people with serious mental illness hold themselves together, however misguidedly, with its bonds. They find meaning in their obsessions, like minded souls, literally things to do to stave off the anxiety and fear.

[boston bean]

64. Yep and it exists I the left as well.

[chwaliszewski]

36. You know....

[DFW]

56. While the slow suicide of these people is tragic

Their willingness to spread the virus to those who really DO try to take precautions against it is not tragic, but mean-spirited, selfish and cruel. Ignorance is one thing, deliberate cruelty is another thing altogether. His regrets at the end seem self-centered instead of apologetic toward anyone he might have infected while acting out his Republican macho fantasy. Now THAT is what I'd call tragic.

There is a difference between a suicide and a suicide bomber.

[Scrivener7]

58. This. When it affected him, he was able to regain his grip on the reality of the situation pretty

quick. It was only when it affected everyone else, and he thought he was probably immune due to his physical strength, that he acted as if he had lost his ability to understand reality.

People are calling on us to empathize with people like him. If I thought my empathy would do anything at all to mitigate the situation for him or for the rest of us, I would certainly try to empathize with him.

But his family showed him empathy. They offered him help. I imagine they did everything they could think to help him. There was no help he would accept. And all the while he was walking around without a mask, and probably infected others when he finally got it.

[SouthernCal_Dem]

66. You don't need a gym to workout....

I was also a gym rat.

Started working out outside when the pandemic started…stairs, pull-ups, push-ups, crunches, workout bands, etc.

I probably got into the best shape of my life during the pandemic and working out outside is way more fun I’ve recently discovered.

Also, I started eating really healthy.

Just walking for an hour is a great workout.

[Skittles]

67. I wonder how many people he passed the virus too

fucking asshole

I do feel for his sister though, that would be hard to live with: knowing a couple of simple shots could have saved her twin.