A North Dakota lawmaker who organized a rally against mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations was not able to attend his event because he contracted COVID-19.
Rep. Jeff Hoverson assisted in the organization of the “We the People” rally, which gathered on the steps of North Dakota’s capital building on Monday (at “HIGH NOON,” according to a Facebook post from Hoverson) to protest the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates.
Though the rally went ahead as scheduled, Hoverson was nowhere to be found — because he was sick in bed with COVID-19.
“COVID is real and like a really bad flu,” he wrote in a Facebook post on the day before the rally, “I am currently quarantining and each day is getting better.”
Hoverson’s condition did not cause him to concede victory to COVID-19 vaccines, though. Instead, he praised the purported benefits of Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic that is generally administered to livestock but has been co-opted by far-right commentators and internet groups as a treatment for COVID-19.
“Thank you, brave soul, for getting me Ivermectin, which now with covid, I am able to stay out of the hospital,” Hoverson wrote on Facebook. “Call and tell the state health dept to stop misleading the public about these available treatments.”
The FDA strongly advises against using Ivermectin to treat COVID-19.
Hoverson has a history of generating news headlines. Just last month, the representative was turned away from boarding a flight in his hometown of Minot, after an altercation with a TSA security guard. Then in 2019, after refusing to participate in a Hindu prayer during a House session, Hoverson, who is also a Lutheran pastor, told reporters that he did not “want to be compelled to pray to a false god.”