‘It was really difficult’: John Bel Edwards on COVID conspiracies

“It was very difficult,” Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards told WWL’s Newell Normand this week during his exit interview. He was answering a question about his most challenging period in office.

Bel Edwards said it was the COVID-19 pandemic and the conspiracy theories that came with it.

“You know, there’s a lot of things that you can anticipate and prepare for. There’s a lot of challenges in government where there really are solutions that you look to other states or what maybe Louisiana has done before this pandemic… there was nothing in my desk drawers that said, this is how you handle that,” he explained.

Bel Edwards, a Democrat, was first elected in 2016 and he was reelected for another term in 2020. When his term ends next year, Governor-elect Jeff Landry, a Republican, will replace him.

He spoke to Normand this week about his legacy as governor, including the difficult times. Normand even asked if he ever felt “despair” while in office.

“The absolute worst was early in COVID,” Bel Edwards said. “At the end of March of 2020, early April, we literally had the highest growth rate in COVID cases being measured anywhere in the world.”

He likened the situation to the popular sitcom “MASH” about an army surgical hospital during the Korean War. While Bel Edwards praised the work of former Vice President Mike Pence, public health officials and hospital staff, he said political ideology made things difficult.

“It was extremely frustrating because, I mean, there was a proliferation of conspiracy theorists out there, whether… the vaccine was… really designed to allow the government to implant some sort of a chip so that people could be tracked,” he said. “And I mean, just really ridiculous things and so many more.”

People who did not get vaccinated were at a higher risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19. Still, Bel Edwards noted that the conspiracy theorists made up just a small group, and he said that a lot of innovation came out of the state during the pandemic.

“You know, some of the medical techniques that were developed to keep people off of ventilators or get people off of ventilators successfully,” he told Normand. “They were pioneered here in Louisiana by our fine physicians. And a lot of people don’t… realize the contributions to medical science that were made here in Louisiana.”

Listen to the governor’s full conversation with Normand here.