A County Council member representing Puna received criticism on social media for a post appearing to downplay the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccinations.
Councilman Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder on Jan. 11 shared on his official Facebook and Instagram accounts a post making claims about the novel coronavirus, the omicron variant and vaccinations that contradict guidance from state and federal health agencies.
The text of the post itself appears to be a copy-and-pasted message that was spread across social media platforms in the beginning of the year, but Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said it was shared directly with him from “medical doctors on Hawaii Island,” who he declined to name for fear of exposing them to harassment.
The post makes several erroneous claims about the omicron variant, including that vaccines are not capable of providing immunity against COVID-19.
Instead, the post reads, “an omicron infection however provides very good protection against infection than any vaccines or infection by previous variants.”
According to the post, the record-breaking number of new cases brought by the omicron variant will lead to herd immunity “and possibly bring an end to the pandemic.”
The post ends with a paragraph condemning unnamed people and groups that have profited from the COVID health crisis and who “sow fear” about the omicron variant in order to perpetuate the pandemic. The post urges readers to ignore such people, as well as those “addicted to living in fear.”
Representatives of the state Department of Health declined to comment on Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s posts, as did a spokesperson for Hilo Medical Center. However, many points made in the posts contradict statements made by national and global health organizations.
Johns Hopkins Medicine advises people to get the COVID-19 vaccine even if they have previously been infected because the immunity to the coronavirus conferred by an infection wanes more quickly than immunity provided by vaccination.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly stated that receiving the vaccine reduces the severity of infection. Unvaccinated people are 20 times more likely to die from COVID than a fully vaccinated person.
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s posts also claimed that COVID-19 hospitalization numbers are inflated, supposedly because as many as 80% of patients are hospitalized for other reasons but contract COVID while in hospital.
But Hilton Raethel, CEO of the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, said earlier this month that 80% of Hawaii’s hospitalized COVID patients were admitted specifically because they needed treatment for the virus.
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said he shared the post not to espouse any specific medical perspective, but simply because he wanted people to read it and draw their own conclusions.
“It’s never the place of any politician to make medical advice,” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said.
However, Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder added that he has received harassment in the comments section about his post and said that the anonymous sources who shared it with him were afraid of similar harassment.
“People are going to want to shoot the messenger just for sharing a different perspective,” Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said, adding that “attacking” people for expressing unpopular opinions is “un-American.”
Several comments on Facebook were openly critical of Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder, accusing him of irresponsibly downplaying a virus that is still dangerous to a large swath of the public. Many even suggested that Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s social media accounts had been hacked, because the copy-pasted post was attributed to “ALS-86.”
“I am shocked that your office would put out this combination of truth and misinformation, designed to sway people against vaccination and to allow themselves to get infected,” wrote Kai Duponte on Facebook. “There are long-term effects to getting even mildly ill — will you take responsibility for the lives you have ruined because people have listened to you?”
As of Monday afternoon, Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder’s posts on both Facebook and Instagram remained up.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.