Gold cautions that one should never call it just “the vaccine,” though. “Always use the word ‘experiment’ when you talk about this. Always,” she told an enthusiastic audience in Rodney Howard-Browne’s church in Tampa Bay, Florida, on January 3. “The socialists win the language wars.”
Howard-Browne’s church is an apt setting for this latest battle in the war over the language and science of the coronavirus pandemic. An evangelist who has laid hands on President Donald Trump, Howard-Browne has been sharing Covid-19-related conspiracy theories with his followers since at least March, when he told them that vaccines for the coronavirus would “kill off many people” and that Covid-19 is a “phantom plague” designed to shut down churches. Howard-Browne was arrested and jailed in March for violating safety codes by encouraging his followers to shake hands — public health restrictions that he said were for “pansies.” Prosecutors later dropped the charges because he was allegedly taking steps to enforce social distancing. But in the January 3 video, audience members sat close together without masks.