Phil Valentine, host of “The Phil Valentine Show,” which airs from Nashville, Tennessee, was diagnosed with the disease earlier this month. He has since been hospitalized and is on an oxygen machine, brother Mark Valentine wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. “Phil made it through the night. He needs to be on an EKMO (sic) machine which is lung part of a heart/lung machine,” he said, referring to an “extracorporeal membrane oxygenation” (ECMO) machine, which acts as an artificial lung and heart for the body. In another update posted Saturday morning, Mark said Phil is in “critical but stable” condition.
Ironically on his radio show, Phil suggested the coronavirus is not as serious as health officials have made it out to be. “I’m not an anti-vaxxer. I’m just using common sense,” he said in a December blog post. “What are my odds of getting COVID? They’re pretty low. What are my odds of dying from COVID if I do get it? Probably way less than one percent.” Phil has also said he believes that the only people who needed to get vaccinated against the coronavirus are those with “underlying health issues.” “If you’re not at high risk of dying from COVID then you’re probably safer not getting it,” he said.
But a COVID-19 vaccination can help curb the spread of the virus and offer protection to others as well. Since his hospitalization, Phil, 61, has reversed course on his stance, according to Mark. Now that he’s contracted the disease, he “regrets” his comments about the vaccines, his family said. Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an anti-vaxer, he regrets not being more vehemently ‘Pro-Vaccine.’
