A Hillsong Church Member who mocked COVID-19 vaccines has died after become infected with the virus.
Stephen Harmon, 34, died on July 21 at Corona Regional Medical Center. He attended Hillsong’s Los Angeles location, had made multiple social media posts mocking the coronavirus vaccine.
“I got 99 problems but a vax ain’t one,” he wrote in a June 13 Twitter post.
“Biden’s door to door vaccine ‘surveyors’ really should be called JaCovid Witnesses. #keepmovingdork,” he wrote in a separate tweet last month.
After being hospitalized for pneumonia and critically low oxygen levels at the Corona Regional Medical Center, located approximately an hour east of Los Angeles, Harmon informed his followers he was still in no hurry to receive the vaccine.
“I’m not against it, i’m just not in a rush to get it,” he wrote in a July 8 Instagram post, CNN reported. “Ironically, as I continue to lay here … in my covid ward isolation room fighting off the virus and pneumonia.”
After being placed on a ventilator, he again took to social media, this time to ask his followers to pray for him.
“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!” he wrote on Twitter three days before his death.
Hillsong Church global senior pastor Brian Houston had announced the death of Stephen Harmon.
“Stephen was just a young man in his early 30s,” Houston wrote, announcing Harmon’s death on social media. “He was one of the most generous people I know and he had so much in front of him.”
Houston expanded on his social media posts in a statement to CNN, saying that “any loss of life is a moment to mourn and offer support to those who are suffering and so our heartfelt prayers are with his family and those who loved him.”
“On any medical issue, we strongly encourage those in our church to follow the guidance of their doctors,” Houston said, emphasizing that the church’s focus was on spiritual well-being.
“While many of our staff, leadership and congregation have already received the COVID-19 vaccine, we recognize this is a personal decision for each individual to make with the counsel of medical professionals,” Houston’s statement reads.