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Who is Brytney Cobia? Alabama doc slammed for FB post saying unvaccinated young people are dying

Brytney Cobia said loved ones of the deceased had refused to get the jab believing Covid was a 'hoax' or due to their political leanings

An Alabama doctor is facing backlash after claiming in an article that young, otherwise healthy unvaccinated coronavirus patients were dying after refusing the vaccine because they thought the pandemic was a "hoax".

"I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious Covid infections," Dr Brytney Cobia wrote on Facebook. "One of the last things they do before they’re intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late." She said loved ones of the deceased had refused to get the jab believing Covid was a "hoax" or due to their political leanings.

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Some, however, said Cobia's claims are too far-fetched and issued caution on sharing the post "uncritically." "You can say whatever you like on @facebook, doesn’t make it true. Especially if you go easy on details," Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson tweeted. "This post is just too perfectly crafted in some way. It tells a story that fits a prevailing narrative in every respect but leaves out any details about age and health of severe effects. And it ends predicting ‘impending doom’ for maskless kids in school," author Jeffrey A Tucker wrote.

"People are sharing that Alabama doctor story uncritically. this is the Facebook post from her which it was based on. seems like the sort of thing that should be scrutinized by journalists before taking it as Gospel," Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy added. "I made a personal decision to get the vaccine, but I can also say that the Alabama story about the doctor is so far-fetched and dramatic that it reads like fiction. I don’t understand how anyone falls for stuff like that," conservative pundit Caleb Hull chimed in.

AL.com cited Cobia's Facebook post in an article titled "‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying Covid patients." The viral article drew a variety reactions, with many lawmakers, commentators, and journalists highlighting the importance of getting vaccinated.

However, it's worth noting that Covid-19 deaths in Alabama have significantly dropped since January, with the current weekly average death toll sitting at six. The state has reported a total of 11,443 deaths from Covid since the pandemic began in March 2020, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. That said, the article notes how Alabama "is last in the nation in vaccination rate," adding that 96% of residents who have died of Covid were not fully vaccinated. 

"Back in 2020 and early 2021, when the vaccine wasn’t available, it was just tragedy after tragedy after tragedy," Cobia wrote, as quoted by AL.com. "You know, so many people that did all the right things, and yet still came in, and were critically ill and died."

Cobia warned that patients with the Delta variant are giving her flashbacks to when the pathogen first hit the United States. She noted the lack of a mask mandate, students going back to school, coupled with vaccine hesitation felt like "impending doom." "All these kids are about to go back to school. No mask mandates are in place at all, 70% of Alabama is unvaccinated. Of course, no kids are vaccinated for the most part because they can’t be. So it feels like impending doom, basically," Cobia concluded.