Volusia County Councilperson Fred Lowry has been hospitalized with COVID-19. Lowry was aggressively spreading disinformation about the virus before his hospitalization. Lowry is suffering double pneumonia induced by a disease he previously denied exists.
Mr. Lowry also apparently enjoys name-calling.
Fred Lowry, a councilman for Florida's Volusia County and a loud COVID-19 denier, is in the hospital with a severe case of COVID-19, according to the County Chair Jeff Brower. "He is in the hospital wrestling with COVID-19. It's been about three weeks now," Brower said on Tuesday as Lowry, 66, missed a county council meeting for the second time.
Lowry, a Republican halfway through his second term on the Volusia County Council, spread COVID-19 disinformation and conspiracy theories, going so far as to say the pandemic was a hoax. "We were lied to," he said in a sermon at Denton's Lakes Baptist Church. Lowry often criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, whom he nicknamed "Dr. Falsey," and insisted the top health official was a liar and pervert. Other conspiracies Lowry promoted had to do with media coverage of hydroxychloroquine and the Wuhan lab-leak theory.
Councilperson Lowry is also apparently active at his church. The article shares that this church has quite a few people out with COVID, but masks are certainly not required.
Lowry last preached in a sermon live-streamed Aug. 29 from Cross Walk Church's Facebook page. Cross Walk Church, also located in Deltona, was formed in August when the congregation of Lowry's former church merged with another.
Pastor Bill Hicks gave the sermon this Sunday, acknowledging that Lowry and many other churchgoers were absent, then turning to the subject of the coronavirus pandemic.
"Some of you may have been told masks are mandatory. They are not," Hicks said. "We're trying to take precautions as best as possible, but that was misinformation."
