When Nancy Daamen’s beloved nephew died of COVID-19 last month, she immediately lost patience with COVID deniers.
She said she couldn’t take the false information being spread on social media, so she began removing people from her list of friends.
“I just couldn’t look at it anymore.”
She said it was painful to know that friends and family members were spreading “misinformation that I know could very well lead to other people dying.”
Miles Copeland died of COVID-19 on Oct. 11. He was 47.
Eight days later, Daamen tweeted: “If what has happened to our family doesn’t change their mind, I’m not sure what will and reading their nonsense hurts right now. Family, friends.. people I’ve known 30 minutes or 30 years. I just can’t.”
Daamen and Copeland were born just a few months apart — and grew up together in the Chipman area, about 100 kilometres northeast of Fredericton. They graduated together from high school, and Copeland even lived with Daamen’s family for a while.
“He was probably one of my best friends in the entire world. I always said he was my brother from another mother.”
She said Copeland was a well-respected trades person, “a lover of Christmas and a pretty darn good homemade bread-maker. He was fun-loving, energetic. He could be quite silly at times and also could be incredibly stubborn.”
Just before Thanksgiving, he collapsed at his Edmonton home and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance. He was put on a ventilator, but his condition continued to worsen.
Daamen said she felt helpless being so far away, having to wait for other family members to keep her posted on his condition.
He died Thanksgiving morning.
Vaccine hesitant
Daamen said her nephew was a healthy 47-year-old who didn’t smoke or do drugs.
“That’s kind of the point we want to drive home … this really can happen to anybody. And you won’t see it coming until it’s too late,” said Daamen.
“No one thinks it’s going to happen to them until it does. And then, once it’s done, it’s done. You can’t take it back. You can’t fix it.”
After she posted about his death, the negative messages started coming in.
Some denied the existence of COVID-19. Others claimed that as many people die from the vaccine as from the disease.
If you are too important to somebody in your life to put your life at risk, just take the plunge. Get vaccinated.– Nancy Daamen
“Well, no, they don’t,” Daamen said “And you know, people need to stop spreading that because that’s the kind of information that people take to heart and then make poor choices.”
Daamen said Copeland was “vaccine hesitant, just like a lot of people.”
She said he believed if he got infected, that he would get over it.
Daamen said a “handful” of people have reached out to her and explained that they were previously vaccine hesitant, but booked their first shots after hearing what happened to Copeland.
Others are sharing his story with those who haven’t been vaccinated in an effort to prevent this from happening to someone else.
Daamen said there’s been a lot of tears over the last month, and everyone is grieving in their own way.
Copeland’s 19-year-old son, Chase, got a tattoo on Wednesday in his father’s honour.
“It is beautiful, I’m sure that [Miles] would have absolutely loved it,” said Daamen.
“It’s actually a quote from the song Patience by Guns N’ Roses. And it says, ‘All we need is a little patience.'”
Daamen wants people to remember that getting vaccinated isn’t just for themselves. It also protects loved ones from having to mourn someone important in their lives.
“If you are too important to somebody in your life to put your life at risk, just take the plunge. Get vaccinated. Do whatever you can to protect not just yourself, but your family from having to go through a loss like this for no real reason.”
