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Medicine

Fitness Influencer Who'd Believed Covid-19 'Didn't Exist' Dies of Covid-19 (dailydot.com) 286

"Fitness influencer Dmitriy Stuzhuk has passed away at the age of 33 after suffering from complications related to COVID-19," reports E! Online.

The Daily Dot points out that Stuzhuk believed COVID-19 "didn't exist" — until he caught it himself after travelling in Turkey: Stuzhuk, who boasted more than 1 million followers on Instagram, tested positive after returning home and immediately went to the hospital. In his final post on Instagram, Stuzhuk, who said that the hospital was "completely filled with people," admitted that he was wrong about the disease and urged his followers to stay vigilant.

"I want to share how I got sick and to strongly warn everyone," he wrote. "I was one who thought that Covid does not exist... Until I got sick..."

Although Stuzhuk was eventually discharged from the hospital after being treated with oxygen, he was rushed back just hours later after his situation began to worsen...Stuzhuk's ex-wife Sofia stated on Instagram that her former husband began having heart-complications linked to "problems with his cardiovascular system..." The couple had three children together, the youngest of whom was just 9 months old.

"Only warm memories remain, three beautiful kids and valuable experience," Sofia said.

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Fitness Influencer Who'd Believed Covid-19 'Didn't Exist' Dies of Covid-19

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  • by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:03PM (#60621998)
    It's amply deserved.
    • by bohmt ( 900463 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:05PM (#60622004)
      He has 3 kids already, so he didn't remove himself from the gene pool.
      • He has 3 kids already, so he didn't remove himself from the gene pool.

        Offspring are not an automatic disqualification for a Darwin Award [darwinawards.com].

        A bigger problem is that the winner's demise must be directly caused by their own action. His denial of the existence of Covid was certainly idiotic, and his carelessness made him more susceptible to infection. But plenty of careful people do contract the disease while plenty of careless people don't. So there is no direct chain of causality between his behavior and his death.

        • by BarbaraHudson ( 3785311 ) <barbara.jane.hud ... minus physicist> on Sunday October 18, 2020 @02:13PM (#60622244) Journal

          Also, how many of his followers did he remove from the gene pool?

          #covidiot is his final hashtag, and deservedly so for profiting off endangering others.

          Any of his followers who got covid should sue his estate. Same as anyone following Trump who got covid.

          • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @02:29PM (#60622320)

            Any of his followers who got covid should sue his estate.

            They would almost certainly fail:

            1. Courts apply a "reasonable person" standard. Would a reasonable person believe this idiot? I don't think so.

            2. The plaintiff would have to show a "duty of care". Did they pay anything for his advice? Was any obligation even implied?

            3. I doubt his "estate" amounts to much, and the welfare of his kids would take precedence over any payout.

            Disclaimer: His death occurred in Ukraine where most of his followers also live, and I know nothing about Ukrainian law.

          • Ah, the good ol' Darwin by proxy.
          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            Any of his followers who got covid should sue his estate. Same as anyone following Trump who got covid.

            The office of POTUS has legal authority and responsibilities, and normally has at least some valid claim to wisdom and good sense. Prior to Trump, (who's stupider and more malicious by far than all of his worst predecessors combined), the White House in general has largely been worthy of trust when it comes to things like public health. So by all means people who got Covid by following Trump's advice should sue - he both failed in his fiduciary obligations and just plain lied.

            OTOH, people who got Covid beca

            • Trump, (who's stupider and more malicious by far than all of his worst predecessors combined)

              James Buchanan may have stupider.

              I would give Andrew Johnson the award for maliciousness. The long term effects of his policies were much more malevolent than Trump's are likely to be.

          • Any of his followers who got covid should sue his estate.

            Did he offer any covid-related advice other than warning people? The article does not say.

            The article quotes him as saying "I also thought", not "I have been saying".

            The guy was an successful influencer, and this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. If you want to convince people that X is false, then you say "I used to believe X, but after Z I've realized that X is false."

            Many slashdotters would prefer to write. "People who believe X are idiots. X is obviously untrue because of Z." This may seem like a

            • If you want to convince people that X is false, then you say "I used to believe X, but after Z I've realized that X is false."

              Many slashdotters would prefer to write. "People who believe X are idiots. X is obviously untrue because of Z." This may seem like a stronger statement. But those whose opinion you would like to change are likely to downmod after reading the first sentence, and never even get to the second one.

              I really like this. It's been bothering me for a long while how to deal with those who suffer from the backfire effect on social media. (backfire effect: https://yourbias.is/the-backfire-effect)

              I've learned that in real life you need to first establish something you have in common with the person, which works to break down their automatic defensive stance against anything you say. Then you can start to feed facts to them that will change their opinions. But, on social media, there seems to be no opport

      • by Kohath ( 38547 )

        You can still go murder his kids.

        Or, you know, don't be a genocidal monster. Try not being terrible. How about that?

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      In addition to the questionable idea that people deserve to die of Covid-19, he had three kids, so no Darwin award.

    • There has to be a certain creativity and uniqueness in you stupidity to be considered and there are many people like this.

      • How about irony - a fitness instructor encouraged people to behave in ways detrimental to their health.

        Same as if he had encouraged them to smoke by claiming, like Mike Pence, that smoking wasn't dangerous, and then dying of lung cancer. >p> Or faith healers claiming that HIV can be can be cured by prayer if gay people repent of their so-called sins then dying of AIDS he got from a male prostitute.

    • It's amply deserved.

      So long as you agree that you deserve to die for the mistakes you made, and outright stupid shit you’ve done, I think your point is a fair one.

      But let’s face it, you don’t think that at all. After all, you’re you, and you’re a human being, unlike the fictitious cartoon characters you read about online. Go tell his grieving family that he deserved it to their face, and if nothing else, I’ll respect you. I doubt you’d do that either, though.

      No,

      • Of course, being a smart person, you no doubt are aware that people are always harder on others than they are on themselves.

        Only sociopaths believe that.

        As for his widow, she obviously failed (did she even try) to deter him. Either she wilfully put herself and the kids at risk or she moved out.

        ' This is 2020 - women have agency. Which also means bearing responsibility for their decisions.

  • by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:08PM (#60622018) Homepage

    The main who refuses to believe anything he reads has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

    • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:26PM (#60622094)

      The main who refuses to believe anything he reads has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

      The problem isn't people not believing what they read, it's believing the wrong things because they can't differentiate fact from fiction [bbc.com].

      • by hey! ( 33014 )

        Telling fact from fiction is easier said than done. Nobody is entirely trustworthy -- the government, the mainstream media, the alternative media. Most people who think of themselves as "skeptics" aren't really skeptical at all -- they're just credulous toward alternative authorities.

        Even people who have a geeky interest in science end up rationalizing beliefs with little evidence support, because in a complex world you can always find some straws to grasp at. What are ordinary people going to do? They

    • by robi5 ( 1261542 )

      Appealing sentence, yet these are not comparable this way. Someone of the first type will have different mental processes to someone of the second type, and both will receive all kinds of information via various channels.

    • The man who refuses to believe anything he reads has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

      "When the Internet is invented, please don't screw up my quotes." - Mark Twain

  • Science. It works, bitch.

  • So, he laughed at the virus. I wonder how many of his followers did the same?

    These stories seem to demonstrate the difference between measured intelligence and practical intelligence. If you waste an entire human brain on conspiracies and misinformation, Saint Darwin may appear. If you ignore science during a pandemic, you may die or kill other people.

    I am sincerely sorry for his kids.

    • In the early days of the initial outbreak in Wuhan, there were scientists that supported the idea that herd immunity would damp down the spread of infection naturally. It was not known at that time how lethal the disease is. I supported the idea of herd immunity, based on explanations by epidemiologists. It turns out I was wrong, as later data fed into statistical models indicated an unacceptable death toll if the disease were allowed to spread without controls such as quarantine. So now, on the basis of ne

  • "You can't fix stupid"
    People dying of a preventable illness is always tragic, but on the other hand perhaps it's not such a bad thing if the really, really stupid people get made an example of to everyone else who is otherwise being stupid about it; maybe we're seeing the average intelligence of all humans increase slightly as a result.
    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      The problem is that they tend to take others with them. The idiot who refuses to wear a mask or who opts for a chin diaper just to be defiant is risking the lives of everyone else in the grocery store. Perversely, Mr. or Ms. chin diaper is protected to a degree by the people they endanger who are wearing a mask and practicing social distancing.

      If the people refusing to take basic precautions only endangered themselves I'd be fine with whatever decision they might make, but unfortunately they DO tend to take

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:20PM (#60622068)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • And your opinion doesn’t determine what it is. Works for everything, including religions, homeopathy, flat earth, global warming, healing crystals, vaccination-caused autism, and the moon landing.

    Your and everybody’s yardstick should be verifiable facts. Not someone else’s opinion, not even if it is from your favorite political party. Reality may have a liberal bias, but no political party has a monopoly on being right. Call yourself a demoblican and fight nonsense and opinions that aren

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      My guess is that there are a lot of people that do not understand what a "fact" is and that it is not subject to opinion. Unfortunately, quite a few people with this problem are successful and get into position of power. For example, the US is about to get a new supreme court judge that thinks global warming a political topic and not a fact. A system that can bring people _this_ defect into high control instances will eventually bring it all crashing down.

  • If a moron dies in the woods of a preventable disease did he really ever exist?
  • Not only did he die of something he didn't believe in, it also looks like he wasn't all that fit either, seeing as though he died quite young.

    Oh the irony...

    • Lots of muscles don't help the immune system. There are indeed people who seem to think that building up muscles is the same as being healthy. You will likely be more healthy by doing cardio exercises that don't bulk you up.

  • A random person, who happens to have stated Covid isn't true, dies from it.

    Sad for him, but this article screams flame bait - as if this subject isn't already just another "scientists are the enemy" situation.

    There are theories that humanity is regressing back to ... pretty much witchcraft ... even in developed countries.
    That we are headed back to an age of ignorance, where conspiracy theories abound and science is "not to be trusted".

    Pretty damn obvious where this mindset comes from - the manipulation of m

    • You belong to that set of persons who believe the world is as small or only consists of "United States of Awesomeness".

      Rest assured: the world is a tiny bit bigger.

  • Place the blame where it is deserved.

    There are thousands of others like him that were not "YouTube influencers" that have also died due to their ignorance. These are people near you, who believed the same nonsense he believed and then died from COVID.

    It was not deserved. These are innocent (but gullible) people that were duped by incessant propagandists, and their flashy propaganda corporations, and their distasteful supporters and distasteful enablers. Companies like Sinclair Broadcasting and Facebook

  • by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @01:48PM (#60622172)

    But, even though the guy was not the brightest bulb in the box, it’s still sad that three young kids don’t have their father around now.

  • by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @02:02PM (#60622224)

    "Covid-19 doesn't exist!" -- Dmitriy Stuzhuk, some time ago.

    "Dmitriy Stuzhuk doesn't exist!" -- Covid-19, today.

  • He is gone, so is the evidence.
    COVID does not exist!

  • I mean, it seems like nobody who believed COVID19 wasn't a real, unique disease but wound up getting it and suffering or dying from it is immune from media coverage? The sad part, really, is that a father of 3 kids passing away in his early 30's isn't even considered newsworthy in and of itself. We're FAR more concerned about making fun of how "stupid" the guy was for not believing in COVID.

    Meanwhile, I'm not even sure the people wanting to use this as part of an agenda are getting why others disagree with

    • highlighting influencers that are deniers in this way is like highlighting anti vaxxers when one of their kids dies of measles. It is important as it sends a wake the fuck up message to those that think these people are somehow smarter than doctors and scientists when it comes to medicine. Sadly their are thousands of people that take what these retards say as fact and while I am all for Darwinism, I think they at least deserve a chance to see the consequences of their idiocy.
  • From the correlation-does-not-equal-correlation files, one might also conclude that this guy's fitness regime doesn't mean that the guy is actually healthy. It's entirely possible that the kale smoothies he was doubtless drinking and the plethora of other dietary choices may have in fact compromised his immune system.

  • by shubus ( 1382007 ) on Sunday October 18, 2020 @05:36PM (#60622888)
    Yes, this social media concept of "influencer" is past due for retirement.
  • by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Monday October 19, 2020 @04:58AM (#60624058)

    I am a cardiologist.

    Here's the thing about heart disease. Heart disease is a general term for a lot of heart conditions, the most common is coronary artery atherosclerosis, which means plaques of cholesterol in the arteries (blood vessels) that supply the heart.

    These plaques do NOT start in your 40s or 50s. They start much younger (think teens and 20s) as thin streaks of cholesterol that line the arteries of the heart. During lectures, I joke that it starts the first time you walk under the golden arches of McDonalds. But it's probably almost any calorie-rich diet that will do it. Heart disease is almost universal. Unless you're foraging for berries in the amazon, you probably have it.

    In general, these streaks lay dormant for many years. Then you get some sort of stress (ie: an episode of high blood pressure, some amazingly fatty meal, a wiff of smoke, an infection (viral or otherwise) and one of the streaks of cholesterol fractures and reforms and goes from 0% stenosis (not blocking the bloodflow at all) to maybe 20% stenosis... which you don't notice at all.

    This happens randomly over the decades. Maybe the next stress causes a different part of the streak to go fro 0% to 30%. Or maybe the 20% goes to 50%. It's a random event that you don't even notice is happening in your body.

    If it goes to ~70% or more, maybe it will make you a little short of breath when you get active. And you tell yourself you're "just getting older".

    If it goes to 95% or more, then you start getting symptoms at rest or minimal exertion and go to the hospital with chest pain.

    So don't think that it's the rare person in their 30s who's at risk of complications from Covid-19 because they have underlying heart disease. We all have heart disease.

Keep up the good work! But please don't ask me to help.

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