This Doctor Is Suggesting COVID-19 Lockdowns Are A Conspiracy To Take Away Your Freedom Same author, same state one month earlier in May wrote this article. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/annie-bukacek-montana-coronavirus-covid-lockdown-protests This Doctor Is Suggesting COVID-19 Lockdowns Are A Conspiracy To Take Away Your Freedom A viral video in which Dr. Annie Bukacek questions the severity of COVID-19 has given anti-lockdown activists across the country a sense of validation. Anne Helen Petersen BuzzFeed News Reporter Posted on May 2, 2020, at 10:23 a.m. ET On Sunday, April 5, Dr. Annie Bukacek, wearing a white doctor’s coat and a pink stethoscope draped around her neck, stood behind a makeshift pulpit against the plain backdrop of a Hilton Garden Inn conference room in Kalispell, Montana. She was there to deliver a sermon of sorts to members of the Liberty Fellowship, an anti-government, anti-globalism church led by a pastor named Chuck Baldwin that serves as a beacon for the extreme political right — a mix of constitutionalists, militia members, and separatists — in Montana’s Flathead Valley. Based on responses from a Facebook post and her own experience as a doctor, Bukacek made her case to the congregation: that the “alleged death rate” due to COVID-19 has been significantly inflated in order to justify otherwise unjust stay-at-home orders. Doctors, Bukacek argued, rely on “assumptions and educated guesses that go unquestioned,” which has resulted in an overreporting of deaths. “Based on inaccurate, incomplete data,” she said, “people are being terrorized by fearmongers into relinquishing cherished freedoms.” (The most recent CDC data suggests that coronavirus deaths have actually been dramatically underreported.) Like many others who’ve propagated falsehoods about COVID, Bukacek argues that because many who’ve succumbed to the disease also had other health concerns, they thus died with COVID-19, not of COVID-19. (People with “comorbidities” like hypertension, diabetes, or immune deficiencies are indeed more likely to die from COVID-19, but the infection itself is the trigger for the respiratory or organ failures that actually cause death.) The video has since been picked up by talk radio, Infowars, QAnon accounts, and other media beacons of the far right. But it’s also made its way to less conspiracy-minded audiences, with over a million views on Facebook and various YouTube channels. For months, figures on the far right have been questioning the severity of government reaction to COVID-19. But Bukacek, who did not respond to multiple requests for an interview, is an unusual messenger for these unfounded claims. As Baldwin was careful to note when he introduced her on camera, Bukacek received her medical degree from the University of Illinois and completed her residency at the Oregon Health and Science University. She is a member of the American College of Physicians, Montana Chapter. She was voted the Best Family Physician in the area in both 2012 and 2019. And, most importantly, she is currently serving as a member of the Flathead County Board of Health. The story of how a doctor now peddling potentially dangerous COVID-19 misinformation found her way onto a board entrusted with preserving communitywide health is, as one might expect, filled with local political grudges and maneuvering. Bukacek’s appointment was controversial when it happened and remains so; there are currently competing petitions to keep her on and remove her from the board. But the story also serves as a microcosm of the national conflict and confusion around the pandemic, as conspiracy theories and anti-government outrage have filled the vacuum created by the general lack of information about a new virus and constantly evolving — and confusing, and sometimes contradictory — public health messaging. Liberty Fellowship / Facebook When Bukacek took the stage in early April, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock had already issued a stay-at-home order, closing all nonessential businesses and preventing gatherings over ten people unless appropriate social distancing could be maintained. Most churches across the state had moved to online services. But Liberty Fellowship — which already tapes and broadcasts their services every week — decided to meet in person anyway. They asked at-risk individuals to stay home, directed attendees to spread out in the room, and had ample supplies of hand sanitizer. At least that’s what they reportedly did: No one outside of the congregation was inside the conference room, and the livestream was focused on the pulpit. When most pastors preach, they use Scripture and anecdotes to illustrate their points. For that week’s sermon, titled “Christianity 101: The Cure Against a Medical Coup,” Baldwin did that — but he also used Bukacek, a longtime member of the congregation and a fierce opponent of abortion and vaccinations. (Bukacek, who is colloquially known as “Dr. Annie,” prefers to describe herself as “pro-informed choice” when it comes to vaccines, and echoes inaccurate arguments concerning safety and herd immunity that are often used by others opposed to vaccines.). Bukacek and Baldwin’s message arrived weeks before dozens of anti-lockdown protests began attracting national attention, but they telegraphed the character, and foundational arguments, of the movement to come. No matter how or when a pandemic hit the United States, there was bound to be some resistance to government actions designed to stem its spread. Resistance to government mandates is, just generally speaking, a deeply American characteristic. But as frustration with these measures grows, the ideology and talking points of anti-government “medical freedom” activists have moved from the fringes of the political spectrum to the mainstream, radicalizing people across the country. “Here's a person that has credentials, who is speaking to them about what the CDC itself says about death certificates. And they’re saying, ‘I was right all along. I knew it.’” For this growing number of skeptics, the experts, institutions, and authorities of mainstream science and medicine can no longer be trusted. And that underlying distrust makes someone like Bukacek — a doctor who positions herself as a rebel unafraid to speak (alleged) truth to the medical establishment — a potent symbol to people who are already nursing their own suspicions. As Bukacek put it herself in an interview, describing the viral success of her video, “Here's a person that has credentials, who is speaking to them about what the CDC itself says about death certificates. And they’re saying, ‘I was right all along. I knew it. I knew something wasn’t right.’” Figures like Bukacek do more than fan the flames of the conspiracy minded. As evidenced by the warring factions that have formed on either side of her, they turn communities against one another at the very time when collaboration, whether on the federal or community level, is needed most. “This seems to be a clear opportunity to create antagonism between neighbors,” said Cherilyn DeVries, who heads up the Flathead chapter of Love Lives Here, an affiliate of the Montana Human Rights Network. “As soon as this disease hit, we started posting and letting people know: These tense, uncertain environments are when extremists have historically come into our community. They prey on divisions, and they try to radicalize people, wedging in their talking points in the midst of controversy.” This sort of division is by no means limited to the local level. Instead of coming together as a country to take on a once-in-a-century pandemic, national opinions about COVID-19 itself have begun to split along political affiliation, with President Trump himself referring to doctor-recommended social distancing as “politically correct” distancing and suggesting — to his own medical adviser’s apparent dismay — that we might investigate the benefits of injecting disinfectant into our bodies. (The president now claims he was being “sarcastic.”) Bukacek’s not just speaking to a congregation in a conference room in the corner of Montana. Like the president, she’s speaking to a frustrated, confused, and receptive audience of millions. Bukacek, age 62, has been a well-known figure in Montana for more than a decade. She lives in the city of Kalispell but is known across the state for carrying plastic fetuses with her as props in her capacity as the president of the Montana Pro-Life Coalition. She was investigated (but not prosecuted) for Medicaid fraud in 2009, following allegations she had billed for time spent praying with patients. (At the time, Bukacek said she had been unfairly targeted because of her anti-abortion activism). Bukacek, who remains firmly opposed to what she calls “Obamacare,” no longer has admitting privileges at the area hospital, Kalispell Regional Healthcare. But as the head of a private “concierge” practice called Hosanna Health, she performs house calls, and she still prays with patients — both of which, to a certain swath of the Flathead population, are cherished services. As one health professional in the area told me, “the little old ladies just love her.” That’s part of the reason Bukacek has found support from the community. The other is that, unlike other political extremists who’ve arrived in the valley, she’s been here for a long time. “I usually tell people that we have a revolving door on extremists who like to come in here from the outside,” DeVries, the head of Love Lives Here, told me. “And we’ve gotten really good at kicking them out. But Annie is a local person, supported by local people.” She’s not going anywhere. In 1990, Flathead County — which covers an area roughly the size of Connecticut, to the direct west of Glacier National Park — was home to just under 60,000 residents. Like the rest of Montana, it was a political mishmash; more con