'Bulletproof' Man With COVID Begs Everyone to Get Vaccine

Unvaccinated Virginia patient has been posting videos from his bed in the ICU
By Liz MacGahan,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2021 11:33 AM CDT
'Bulletproof' Man With COVID Begs Everyone to Get Vaccine
A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is drawn into a syringe at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa. Most people hospitalized with COVID-19 aren't vaccinated.   (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen via AP, File)

A Virginia man who spoke out against the COVID vaccine is now fighting for his life in a pulmonary ICU and begging anyone who will listen to get vaccinated. Travis Campbell, 43, was diagnosed with COVID on July 22, WCYB reports. Within days the Bristol man worsened, went to the hospital, moved to the COVID ICU and then the pulmonary ICU, NBC News reports. His wife, Kellie Campbell, and their two kids are sick with the virus as well. Campbell has been posting videos to his Facebook page pleading with people to take the virus seriously. "I truly regret not getting the vaccine," he posted, telling anyone who thinks they’re "bulletproof" that "it's time to protect your family."

Campbell has been posting videos from the hospital, looking more exhausted in each one. In a video posted Tuesday, he's out of breath, pausing between each word. In an earlier post he said he was "over the stupid conspiracies"—and he summons the energy to crack a joke about them. "I hope that you can truly see in my messages that Joe Biden and Harris are not paying me $30 a piece for each one of y'all to go get vaccinated. That's a joke," he said in the video. Campbell is worried enough about the outcome of his hospitalization—he's already suffered a partial lung collapse—that he's begun to plan his own funeral, WCYB reports. (More COVID-19 stories.)

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