Political Quotes

“less than 2 miles from this Capitol, there are 666,000 small white flags stretching across the National Mall like a sea of suffering and loss. Each of these flags represents an American life lost to COVID--666,000. Let me tell but one of them. Her name was Candace Ayers. She lived in my hometown of Springfield, IL. Early last March, as soon as they could, Candace and her husband Terry received their second coronavirus vaccinations. That was a day of joy and relief for the family because Candace lived with rheumatoid arthritis, which weakened her immune system. In July, she traveled to Mississippi--a State, sadly, with one of the lowest vaccination rates--to console a friend who had lost her husband. At the time, COVID infections were at a low point, and the Delta variant was just starting, so Candace thought she would be safe, having been vaccinated. Soon after the trip, she tested positive for COVID. She was hospitalized and moved to an ICU, and she spent the last few weeks of her life on a ventilator. She died on September 3 at the age of 66, leaving behind her husband, their son and daughter and 5-year-old triplet grandchildren. In the obituary in my hometown paper, her family wrote: ``She was vaccinated but was infected by others who chose not to be. The cost was her life.'' I read that to my wife the morning it was printed and said I have never seen a sentence or two like that in any obituary.…”