‘You don’t want to be where I a(m) now.’ Dying Georgia man encourages COVID vaccine
Hospitalized with COVID-19, Kevin McKenzie of Georgia begged his friends and family not to make the same mistakes he did.
“There is something I want everyone to do for me that I was too damn stubborn to do,” the 33-year-old wrote Aug. 24 on Facebook, thanking people for their prayers and well wishes.
“If you haven’t yet done so go get your Covid vaccine,” McKenzie wrote. “Trust me you don’t want to be where I a(m) now and as soon as I get over this I’ll be getting my vaccine.”
But McKenzie never got the chance. He died Sept. 2 after a weeks-long battle with the virus, WSB reported.
“He won’t even know how his story saved so many lives because the amount of people who are getting vaccinated after hearing his battle!” fiancee Lori Minatree posted on Facebook. “He was just 33 years old and had his whole life ahead of him.”
McKenzie, a Senoia man who worked at a fiberglass company, enjoyed camping, roller coasters, motorcycles and trains, according to his obituary.
Although he had no children, he loved kids and “became an adopted uncle” to many, the obituary said.
McKenzie wrote in his Facebook post that on arriving at the hospital for COVID-related pneumonia, four doctors told him they “had not had to admit one single vaccinated” patient for COVID.
In a later post Aug. 24, he expressed his appreciation for a Chinese dinner Minatree brought to the hospital for him and shared his fortune, which read, “Good health is a man’s best wealth.”
More than 220 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed worldwide with more than 4.5 million deaths as of Sept. 5, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has had more than 39 million confirmed cases with more than 648,000 deaths.
More than 99% of recent COVID-19 deaths in the United States have involved people who are not vaccinated against the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on “Meet The Press” July 4.
This story was originally published September 5, 2021 at 2:51 PM with the headline "‘You don’t want to be where I a(m) now.’ Dying Georgia man encourages COVID vaccine."