A churchgoer of the Hillsong megachurch—which sees the likes of Justin Bieber and Kendall Jenner in attendance—has died of COVID-19 after he was seemingly defiant of vaccines and treatments, writing that he had “99 problems but a vax ain’t one.”
Stephen Harmon, who the Independent reports was 34, died on Wednesday after a battle with COVID, as announced by Hillsong pastor Brian Houston.
“Stephen was just a young man in his early 30’s. He was a graduate from Hillsong College and a vital part of our church in California. He was one of the most generous people I know and he had so much in front of him. He would always turn up to our grandkids soccer games and he will be missed by so many. RIP,” Houston wrote.
Harmon’s social media pages were eventually made private, but several publications reported that his tweets were often critical of vaccines and as he live tweeted his condition, treatments. But, as his condition worsened, he opted for incubation treatment.
“Please pray y’all, they really want to intubate me and put me on a ventilator,” the Daily News reports he wrote last Sunday. “If you don’t have faith that God can heal me over your stupid ventilator then keep the Hell out of my ICU room, there’s no room in here for fear or lack of faith.”
On June 3, he shared views on vaccines with a spin on Jay-Z’s classic “99 Problems” hook, too.
“If you’re having email problems, I feel bad for you, son,” he tweeted. “I got 99 problems but a vax ain’t one.”
As recently as this week, Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke on recent NFL protocols, saying that teams could be forced to forfeit if a game can’t be rescheduled in 18 weeks due to COVID-19 breakouts in unvaccinated players, telling CBS News that the league was “sending a very strong signal that it’s very important to get vaccinated.”
“If you want to play football and you want to do it in a way that you feel unrestricted and not worry about any penalties, you just get vaccinated, because they’re saying that if unvaccinated people get infected, there are going to be consequences,” Fauci said.
