Ted Nugent tests positive for COVID-19

Musician Ted Nugent said that he tested positive for COVID-19 this week, describing his symptoms as a “clusterf—” and telling supporters, “I thought I was dying.”

“Everybody told me I should not announce this, but can you hear it, I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days that have just, I thought I was dying,” Nugent, 72, said during a Facebook Live video on Monday, calling his symptoms “just a clusterf—.”  

“I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days, but I did, I crawled,” Nugent added during the video. 

He said he tested positive for the virus on Monday.

Nugent, a staunch supporter of former President Trump, has previously called coronavirus precautions a “leftist scam to destroy” Trump and criticized health regulations taken by officials amid the ongoing pandemic.

The musician in the Facebook video also repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus attack,” a reference to COVID-19’s first documented origins in China.  

Prominent Asian Americans have argued that the labeling of COVID-19 as the “China virus” or other racist terms like “kung flu” have contributed to a rise in violence against people of Asian descent across the country. 

Nugent on Monday also claimed without evidence that he has not taken a COVID-19 vaccine “because nobody knows what’s in it” and called on officials to “honestly answer our questions of exactly what’s in it.”

Health officials have maintained that the COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. are safe and have not been associated with any serious side effects.  

Last month, officials recommended a pause in the administration of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine after six women who received the shot developed blood clots. However, more than 7 million people have received the J&J vaccine.

Trump has urged his supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus as vaccine development occurred under his administration. Last month, he told Fox News that “it’s a great vaccine, and it’s a safe vaccine.”

“I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it and a lot of people who voted for me, frankly, and we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also,” Trump told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo.