'I did indeed delete the tweet': GOP lawmaker tweets comparison between Dr. Fauci and Jim Jones

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A Kentucky legislator unnecessarily put her foot in it for a few likes on Twitter Tuesday when she tweeted a meme comparing Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has fiercely advocated for COVID-19 vaccinations, to cult leader Jim Jones. More than 900 people died in 1978 when Jones orchestrated a massacre in which some willingly and some were forced to drink poisoned Flavor Aid while in a Guyana settlement that Jones dubbed Jonestown. ”Some will cavil, they will not be able to help themselves,” Kentucky House Education Committee Chairwoman Rep. Regina Huff wrote in the post accompanied by photos of both Fauci and Jones. “I persuaded over 900 people to drink my Koolaid,” read the meme across Jones’ photo.

”Amateur,” read the one across Fauci’s. Huff ultimately deleted the post, but not before Louisville Courier-Journal education reporter Olivia Krauth took a screenshot and shared it.

“I did indeed delete the tweet because of the vulgarity within the comments,” Huff said in a follow-up tweet. “The context of the tweet is representative of the efforts gearing up to mandating and controlling citizens, once again. Our students need to be in school, with parents deciding if they wear a mask.”

Considering there is no vaccination currently available for young children, Huff’s advice flies in the face of the reality of the pandemic. “If you look at the deaths due to Covid-19 in the United States, 99.5% of them are among unvaccinated people, and 0.5% are among vaccinated people,” Fauci told MSNBC on Wednesday. “That’s a very striking and telling statistic.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidance that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by laws, rules, regulations, or local guidance,” the agency said on its website, updated on July 16. Fauci went a step beyond the CDC and actually said vaccinated people may want to consider wearing masks indoors to protect against the quickly spreading delta variant of COVID-19.

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Dr. Brytney Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham, Alabama, gave testimony that supported the statistics in a gutwrenching Facebook post initially reported in The Birmingham News. “I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections,” Cobia wrote in the post on Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.

”A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same,” the doctor added. “They cry. And they tell me they didn’t know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn’t get as sick. They thought it was ‘just the flu’. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can’t. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.”