‘A shot would have saved him’: Family grieves after father who called vaccine a conspiracy dies of COVID-19

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Michael Stevenson lived in Oklahoma City for decades with wife, Melinda Young, before his job took him to Florida a few years ago.

That’s where he died of COVID on August 3 — never getting the vaccine because he thought it was a government conspiracy.

“A shot would have saved him, a shot would have saved him,” Young lamented.

Stevenson, 50, had called the COVID vaccine a government conspiracy.

“A lot of people think the shot is how they were going to track people, [that] the government tracks people or they’re trying to take too much control,” Young said.

She said Stevenson believed medical professionals were under government authority. He also believed the number of COVID deaths was inflated by the government and that many of those deaths claimed to be from the virus were by other causes.

Even after his own father died of COVID in April, he still didn’t get vaccinated.

Two months later, Stevenson was admitted into the hospital, now a victim of the virus himself.

“Within 48 hours of being admitted, he wished he would have got the shot because he was already that miserable,” Young shared. “His body was hurting. He couldn’t breathe. He wished he would have gotten it.”

His family was in anguish as he fought for his life on a ventilator.

“It was such ups and downs and so many hopeful moments that I can’t even explain,” said Young, breaking off in tears. “I thought he was going to make it. We thought he was going to make it.”

A week and a half after being admitted, doctors asked to pull Stevenson off the machines. Young granted the permission.

“It was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said.

Now, she’s pleading with the public to get the vaccine.

“Don’t do it for you,” she said. “Because it’s the people that love you that you need to research, do your homework, to see why you need that shot.”

She believes saving lives can be Stevenson’s legacy.

“We promised he would not die in vain,” she said. “No one that we can touch will go through what we went through because no one deserves it.”

After Stevenson’s death on August 3, one his sons who had also chosen not to get vaccinated finally went and got the shot.