Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings credits the vaccine and a monoclonal therapy he received prior to getting sick as the reasons he recovered so quickly from COVID-19.
The mayor offered the comments on Wednesday during a press conference to update the public on COVID-19 statistics in Orange County.
“I thank God that I had a mild form of COVID. I really didn’t have any symptoms,” said Demings, who suggested that had he contracted the virus at any other point, he might not have fared as well.
“If I had tested positive in 2020, I probably would not have had the same experience that I had in 2022. If I had tested positive in the summer of 2021, I probably would have had a different experience than I had now,” said Demings.
Demings went on to suggest that the “overwhelming majority of people” who are vaccinated and are testing positive are incurring “minimal symptoms.”
“There were people who were vaccinated, who ended up hospitalized. But, uh, I think that’s related to preexisting conditions that they may have had, and maybe their DNA was just different than mine, I don’t know,” said Demings. He says he encourages everyone to get vaccinated to mitigate the chances of experiencing worse symptoms.
“I can’t tell you definitively why I had the kind of experience I had, so I still encourage everybody, if you are not vaccinated, go get vaccinated. You hedge your bet,” said Demings.
Demings reiterated that only the department of health has information pertaining to how many people have died and whether or not they were vaccinated or unvaccinated at their time of death. During the meeting, Demings indicated that 2,436 residents have died from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic.