The Trump administration has repeatedly said they hope to have a vaccine for the novel coronavirus by the end of the year, going to far as to place senior White House advisor Jared Kushner to head up the vaccine program, even though he has no medical training or experience and a enormous failure as a businessman, much like his more famous father-in-law.

But even if there is a vaccine within before the end of 2020, many of Trump’s staunchest supporters are declaring they won’t accept an immunization because they’re certain Microsoft founder Bill Gates plans to implant the shots with the Biblical “mark of the beast,” according to Patheos:

“Early in the pandemic, right-wing pastor Curt Landry urged his followers to avoid any hypothetical future COVID-19 vaccinations, claiming such avoidance would protect them from receiving the Mark. And the late Louisiana pastor Robbie Hampton, not long before he succumbed to COVID-19, predicted a mandatory vaccine that would inject ‘some type of chip in you and maybe even have some mood, mind-altering substances.'”

Evangelical nutjob Rick Wiles, however, was the first to link Gates to the COVID-19 vaccine:

“Wiles is the figure behind TruNews (a source of news so patently untrue — and anti-Semitic to boot — it’s been perma-banned on YouTube). He released a video in which he directly connects Bill Gates to the Antichrist and even to Satan”:

Why Bill Gates, who has given billions of his own money to benefit the health and well-being of people around the globe? Mostly because he’s smart, has criticized Donald Trump a couple of times, is a philanthropist, and doesn’t sufficiently genuflect when the name of “God” is mentioned. In other words, Gates has a brain, and that’s the most dangerous thing imaginable to a right-winger.

Also, Gates recently made a suggestion of how it might be possible to keep the U.S. economy running despite the lockdowns taking place across the nation:

“Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it.”

But the evangelical extremist Bible-thumpers heard that and started thinking Gates must be the devil. If that was the case, wouldn’t his company be named Microsatan or Mephistosoft?

If people like Rick Wiles don’t want to take the coronavirus vaccine when it’s available, we should welcome it. Natural selection will take care of the rest.