Marcus Lamb, anti-vaccine Christian broadcaster dies after Covid battle

Marcus Lamb, co-founder and CEO of the conservative Christian Daystar Television Network who vocally opposed Covid vaccines, has died at age 64, weeks after contracting Covid-19, according to the network.

“It's with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning," said a tweet Tuesday from the network. "The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer."

The Christian broadcaster's son, Jonathan Lamb, filled in for his father on a Nov. 23 Daystar broadcast and beseeched listeners to pray for his father's recovery from Covid.

Speaking to viewers from Lamb's hospital bedside via telephone, Marcus Lamb's wife, Joni Lamb, said, "With this thing, it's kind of like riding a roller coaster."

"It's like, you'll just be up and everything's great, and then you have a little lull, and then you come down low and then you come back up, but from everybody that I talk to — I think that's the pattern," she said.

"We can really feel the prayers of the people," Joni Lamb said, thanking viewers for their prayers.

"Pray specifically for his lungs to clear the Covid pneumonia and pray for his oxygen level to continue to be strong and to go up so that we can wean him off of oxygen and bring him home," she said.

Jonathan Lamb described his father's Covid infection as "a spiritual attack from the enemy" to "take down" Marcus Lamb.

The network has dedicated hours of broadcasts to anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine individuals and groups.

In July 2020, the Lamb family devoted an hour of their broadcast to "censorship" around the Covid pandemic, featuring misinformation group "America's Frontline Doctors."

In May 2021, Daystar broadcast an hour-long program with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose famous family denounced his anti-vaccine views in May 2019 and who was recently banned by Instagram for posting Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.

Vaccines remain the safest and most effective way to prevent the worst outcomes of Covid-19, with a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study finding in September that they were still largely able to stop hospitalization in people infected with the highly contagious delta variant, and a British study finding that the vaccinated are less likely to spread the virus if they do become infected.

In light of the emergence of omicron, a new variant of concern that is spreading rapidly in southern Africa, the CDC on Tuesday strengthened its advice on Covid-19 booster shots, saying all eligible adults should get one. Adults ages 18 and older become eligible six months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna series, or two months after getting the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

In recent months, a number of prominent anti-vaccine Christian broadcasters have died from Covid-19. Conservative radio hosts Dick Farrell, Phil Valentine, and Marc Bernier, who were unvaccinated, all died after contracting Covid.