On Monday morning, former Secretary of State Colin Powell died of COVID-19 complications. He was fully vaccinated, a detail that the right-wing has been all too eager to brandish. The detail they’ve conveniently ignored? The fact that Powell also had several risk factors, including multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that dampens the immune system’s ability to fight off infection. Despite what the right claims, Powell’s death makes the case for vaccines, which work best when as many of us as possible get them, so that those of us for whom it’s effective can protect those for whom it isn’t.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the right quickly leapt at the opportunity to spin an anti-vax narrative around Powell’s death. “The fact that Colin Powell died from a breakthrough COVID infection raises new concerns about how effective vaccines are long-term,” Fox News anchor John Roberts said in a since-deleted tweet. (Twitter saved the receipts, of course.) Meanwhile, conservative commentator Nick Adams, whose Twitter banner reads “President Trump’s Favorite Author,” tweeted, “Fully vaccinated former 4-star General Colin Powell has died from COVID. Rest In Peace.”
