Remembering the Death of Dykota Morgan
A look back at how public health leveraged tragedy to sell parents and minority groups on the dangers of COVID-19 and the "need" to "vaccinate" children and teens
A friend and I were speaking this week about deaths of children and teens in Chicagoland in 2020 - 2022 that one or both of us had looked into. I had forgotten about Dykota Morgan of Bolingbrook and revisited some of the details in a thread on X this morning, which I repeat here in essay form.
In May 2021, the Will County (IL) Public Health Department shamefully leveraged the tragic death of 15-year-old Dykota Morgan, and her parents’ grief, for COVID-shot propaganda aimed at increasing uptake among African Americans.
When Dykota, an athlete and artist from Bolingbrook, Illinois, died on Tuesday, May 4, 2021, Chicago media reported her death quickly, as media typically do with unexpected child deaths that are in the public interest.
National media picked it up too. The emphasis across news outlets was on Dykota being a healthy child who died from COVID-19, a ridiculous idea refuted by public data.
A 9-minute interview with Dykota’s parents is still posted on the Will County Health Department website. Their detailed, heartfelt testimony deserves attention for the sequence of events, which included treatment at two hospitals. Dykota had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 on a rapid test at home prior hospital admission and was, I imagine, tested at the hospital as well
I’m not a doctor or a lawyer, but Dykota’s parents saying their daughter was put into a “medically-induced coma” catches my attention and, with other details, leaves me with the impression that the case should be opened for investigation and the actual causes of death reconsidered and disclosed.
It’s a tragedy no matter what, of course. Dykota’s life absolutely mattered as does her death, which (like others across the U.S.) was presented as due to COVID-19 and then used to persuade parents to have their children vaccinated.
The county health department held a vaccine drive in Dykota’s name and offered tickets to a Six Flags theme park as incentives. The press release for the event is full of unsubstantiated claims and the core message unmistakable: COVID-19 is a threat to healthy children. If Dykota had had the chance to get the COVID shot, she would not have died.
Her father, Rashad Bingham, is quoted as saying,
“If you look at our daughter, she was in tip-top shape and she had no underlying conditions, and what COVID-19 did to her in such a short time, it can do to any child.”
I don’t blame Mr. Bingham for saying this, first and foremost because I have no judgement for anything a parent says after losing a child. I have two kids and can’t begin to imagine such a loss and unbearable weight of grief.1 I also don’t blame him because U.S. and Illinois agencies led Dykota’s dad and millions of other parents to believe that “COVID-19” was a killer of healthy children.
I came to the conclusion there was no new spreading disease in late 2019/early 2020. Yet even those who disagree should be able, at this point, to concede that there there was never a basis for claiming that millions of children and teens required an injection to “prevent” (what the WHO called) COVID-19…or for the propaganda, high-pressure tactics, disregard for the law, and abrogations of bodily autonomy that came with it.
Whatever the FDA reveals today or tomorrow about child deaths tied to the COVID shot, do not forget everything that was said and done to create the illusion of a serious threat to children and to pressure parents into giving them a rushed, untested product they didn’t need.
Do not forget Dykota Morgan.
I attended the funeral service of a Chicago-area teen who took his own life in November 2021, at a time when I was tracking such deaths: https://www.woodhouse76.com/p/youth-school-year-mental-health-deaths