‘That was the problem’: Republican Kelly Ernby was not vaccinated when she died of Covid, says husband

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

An anti-mandate prosecutor who died of Covid-19 was not vaccinated and “that was the problem”, her husband has confirmed.

California Republican Kelly Ernby, a deputy district attorney from Orange County, had publicly attacked government virus vaccine mandates in the months before she died.

Following the 46-year-old’s death, some GOP activists falsely suggested that a vaccination shot was the cause of it, according to The Orange County Register.

Now her husband, Axel Mattias Ernby, has taken to social media to squash those false rumours.

“Please stop spreading lies about Kelly Ernby,” he wrote on one Facebook post about his wife’s death.

“She was NOT vaccinated. That was the problem.”

Despite her death, Republican leaders in Orange County insisted they would continue to speak out against vaccine mandates.

“I intend to continue, if invited, speaking out against the mandates, and also saying that my choice is to get vaccinated and I believe that should be the choice most people make, absent a genuine health concern or absent a religious objection,” said Orange County Third District Supervisor Don Wagner.

Mr Wagner spoke with Ernby at an anti-mandate rally in Irvine, California, on December 4.

“There’s nothing that matters more than our freedoms right now,” she said at the event, according to The Daily Titan.

In November 2019 she also took part in an online town hall in which she said she opposed a state law that proposed tightening immunisation rules for school pupils.

“My fundamental belief is that government should be very small and I don’t believe in mandates,’ she said.

“I don’t think that the government should be involved in mandating what vaccines people are taking.

“I think that’s a decision between doctors and their patients ... if the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?”

There have now been more than 57m cases of Covid in the US, and around 828,000 deaths during the pandemic.

Around 70 per cent of Orange County residents have been vaccinated, while California has seen 5.75m cases and 76,821 deaths.