Texas GOP Official Dies from Covid Days after Mocking the Virus on Social Media

H. Scott ApleyFacebook

Dickinson City Council member and State Republican Executive Committee member H. Scott Apley, 45, died of Covid related complications at a local hospital around 3 a.m. Wednesday morning on the 4th of August, a few days after posting messages on social media, in which he mocked the Covid virus.

He was admitted to the facility in Galveston on Sunday with “pneumonia-like symptoms,” and was hooked up to a ventilator as his condition worsened. According to his family, his wife is also infected.

Apley who regularly espoused anti-vaccine and anti-mask views online died from COVID-19, five days after posting a meme on Facebook questioning the wisdom of getting inoculated against COVID.

Dickinson Mayor Sean Skipworth wrote in a Facebook post,

“My heart is beyond broken for his family. Scott was a new father and that makes this loss especially tragic.”

A staunch conservative and devout Christian, Apley didn’t believe COVID was going to affect either him or his family and frequently took to social media to express his opinion. In May he posted an invitation for a “mask burning” being held at a bar in Cincinnati, commenting;

“I wish I lived in the area.”

Apley was also outspoken against vaccine passports, echoing the sentiment of many GOP members in Texas. He suggested that mask mandates in Germany were akin to Nazism, and when former Baltimore health commissioner Leana Wen celebrated good news this spring about the Pfizer vaccine’s efficacy, an outraged Apley called her “an absolute enemy of a free people.”

On July 30, less than a week before his death, Apley reposted a meme on his Facebook page that said: 

“In 6 months, we’ve gone from the vax ending the pandemic — to you can still get covid even if vaxxed — to you can pass covid onto others even if vaxxed — to you can still die of covid even if vaxxed — to the unvaxxed are killing the vaxxed.”

In response to his death, Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi, failing to mention Apley’s Covid status, said in a statement, 

“Please join me in lifting the Apley family up in prayer. We will miss Scott deeply but find comfort knowing he is at peace in the arms of our Savior.” 

Apley is unfortunately not alone, with countless anti-vaccine proponents being hospitalized for Covid across America as the Delta variant continues to drive a new spike in infections. Apley was right in one sense. The vaccines will not prevent you from contracting Covid, but they significantly reduce the risk of death from the virus.

Once you're hospitalized, it is of course, too late to turn to the vaccine and you are on your own. It’s a risk too many Americans are still willingly accepting and it is costing them their lives.

A Go Fund Me campaign has been set up for friends and family to help cover the Apley family expenses. 

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