Anti-vaxxer’s family slammed for ‘begging’ for money

The family of a Covid conspiracy theorist who ultimately died of the virus has been ridiculed for “begging” for money and launching fundraising pages in his memory.

The family of a Covid-19 conspiracy theorist who ultimately died of the virus has been ridiculed for “begging” for money and launching a fundraising page — with strangers accusing them of “stupidity” and urging potential donors not “to help pay for the funeral of someone who caused others to die”.

H. Scott Apley, a leader of the Texas Republican Party and Dickinson City Council member, is one of a growing number of highly publicised cases of people getting seriously ill or dying of coronavirus after railing against masks, bashing vaccines, and playing down the gravity of the pandemic — which, in America, has infected more than 39 million people to date.

The official death toll in the US stands at more than 642,000.

Across forums, within social media profiles and on dedicated websites, the names and faces of Covid-19 sceptics, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who’ve been struck down are being meticulously collated.

There’s an entire subreddit dedicated to recipients of the Herman Cain Award, named after the Republican powerbroker and presidential hopeful who downplayed coronavirus before dying from it.

And operators of the website sorryantivaxxer.com say they can’t keep up with submissions.

Mr Apley was well known for his outspoken views on the efficacy of vaccines and mask-wearing.

“I wish I lived in the area!” he wrote on Facebook in May, according to The Washington Post, alongside news of a “mask burning” party held nearly 1500km from his home.

This is Texas State Republican Executive Committee Member Scott Apley.

Scott posted this COVID conspiracy theory rap video to his Facebook.

Scott is now dead from COVID-19.

Don’t be like Scott. pic.twitter.com/8RGWVl5o2i

— Resist Programming 🛰 (@RzstProgramming) August 4, 2021

You are an absolute enemy of a free people. #ShoveTheCarrotWhereTheSunDontShine.

— H Scott Apley (@hsapley) April 2, 2021

A month earlier, he responded to what Baltimore’s former health commissioner was heralding as “great news” — clinical trials that showed the Pfizer vaccine was effective at fighting Covid-19 for at least six months.

“You are an absolute enemy of a free people,” the 45-year-old wrote on Twitter.

And earlier this month, just two days before he was admitted to hospital with “pneumonia-like symptoms”, the father-of-one shared a Facebook post implying that vaccines don’t work.

“In six months, we’ve gone from the vax ending the pandemic, to you can still get Covid even if vaxxed, to you can pass Covid onto others even if vaxxed, to you can still die of Covid even if vaxxed, to the unvaxxed are killing the vaxxed,” the post read.

He tested positive to Covid-19, was subsequently sedated and put on a ventilator, and died on August 4, leaving behind his wife, who had also tested positive to the virus, and their infant son.

H. Scott Apley with his wife, Melissa, and their infant son. Picture: GoFundMe

A GoFundMe initially set up to cover “any expenses that [the family] will incur until they are in the clear” and, after Mr Apley’s death, pegged as helping “the family as they get through this difficult period” has raised close to $55,000.

But it’s also been the catalyst of vitriol directed at Mr Apley’s widow — who told The Post that her husband wasn’t against the vaccine, but “against the government forcing people to get vaccinated” — and son, drawing scorn as the councillor’s social media posts circulated in the wake of his death.

Scott Apley, a TX GOP City Council Member, has passed away at 45 from COVID-19. The TX GOP left that out of their statement. They also left of that he infected his wife & infant son.

They set up a GoFundMe to help w/ the families expenses. That's what makes me the angriest. pic.twitter.com/Zfnng9RCRQ

— 🏳️‍🌈Carly Danielle Mayer🏳️‍🌈 (@CarlyDMayer) August 5, 2021

Scott Apley’s GoFundMe has already raised $38,000… This is the guy that held mask burnings, mocked health guidance, then caught Covid and died. Meanwhile, those of us who do the right thing catch Covid nonetheless and get strapped with the same bill.

— MusicNotes 💙🇺🇸 (@AdamQuinn79) August 7, 2021

Their GoFundMe page reads "Help Scott & Melissa Apley medical and funeral". So they spread misinformation and got others to not get vaccinated, now they want help paying for his funeral. Don't be stupid enough to help pay for someone's funeral who caused others to die.

— Never Just Survive! THRIVE! (@LastBubbleRises) August 5, 2021

“This could have easily been prevented. Instead, he was telling people NOT to get vaccinated. How many others died unnecessarily with him?” one person wrote on Twitter, with another adding “or because of him”.

“They won’t do the right thing for the public and get vaccinated, but expect the public to chip in for funeral expenses!” said another.

“Have they set one up for any he infected through his callousness?” wrote one woman, while another wrote that Mr Apley “got what he asked for”.

Apley ‘got what he asked for’, users wrote on Twitter. Picture: Supplied

The city of Dickinson told ABC 13 it had also received calls mocking his death, even celebrating it, in the days after Mr Apley’s death.

“CONGRATULATIONS,” a card sent to the council after Mr Apley’s death reportedly said. “Guess the grim reaper got the last laugh,” someone had written inside, adding a smiley face and welcoming “one more dead Republican”.

“Some might baulk at the notion of sifting through Apley’s social media to find content like [his anti-vaccine, anti-mask posts],” Vanessa Taylor wrote for mic.com.

“However, Apley wasn’t just some random anti-vaxxer who happened to die from Covid-19. He held positions of power within his communities, even if they may be small. It’s no small thing for a politician in Texas, which ranks 36th in the US for vaccination rates, to push an opinion that can endanger others.”

In an op-ed for Galveston County’s The Daily News, Margaret Battistelli Gardner wrote that Mr Apley’s attempts at “trying to influence people to not get vaccinated was reckless and repugnant and wasn’t based on science or common sense”.

That does not, however, justify the abuse that Mr Apley’s family has received.

Instead, his “death and the vitriol surrounding it exemplify some core truths around the coronavirus pandemic”, Gardner wrote.

“First, the politicisation of Covid, the measures that can help stem its spread — masks, social distancing, closures, capacity restrictions, etc. — the vaccines created to protect us against it and some of the potential cures for those who’ve already contracted it have pitted Americans against each other at a time when that’s the last thing we need,” she said.

“It has tested our capacity for compassion, our very humanity — a test too many of us are failing in some ways when it comes to for whom we reserve our sympathies.

“Second, disinformation is killing people, even those who are dispensing and spreading it. Yes, breakthrough infections happen in the vaccinated. Yes, it looks like booster shots are going to be required.

“But no matter how much or how loudly anti-vaxxers condemn the vaccines, the fact remains that fewer than one per cent of vaccinated people wind up hospitalised with Covid and even fewer die from it.

“Get your shots. And don’t forget that politics and people are two different things.”