Christians question woman’s faith on Facebook after her COVID-19 diagnosis: ‘That’s why the virus touched her’

An Alabama woman was deluged with insults after she announced her COVID-19 diagnosis in a Facebook Live video that went viral.

Shanterica Splunge told viewers that she regretted traveling to Savannah a week before, and she regretted believing she wouldn't catch the highly infectious coronavirus, reported AL.com

“One reason I made my video was because I was so frustrated, seeing people would still go to barbecues and go to church,” said Splunge, of Montgomery. “People think, it’s not going to touch me because I live in a small town or because nobody at the barbecue has it.”

When she was diagnosed in mid-March, the 29-year-old believed Facebook rumors that African Americans were less likely to catch the virus.

“In my mind, I’d started to think, I haven’t heard of any African Americans that have this virus,” Splunge said. “It seemed like, the culture could not be touched. I was the first person I knew in this area that got it.”

Splunge believes she may have been infected in early March, when she went to a funeral in Detroit, and she started feeling sick over St. Patrick's Day weekend while visiting her friend in Georgia.

She took a bus back home and went straight to a hospital, where she tested positive for COVID-19.

Alabama had closed schools for an initial two weeks but had not issued any restrictions on public activity, and the state had only 30 cases -- a number that has ballooned to 2,838 nearly a month later, with 78 deaths.

Shortly after her diagnosis, she made a Facebook video that has been viewed more than 10,000 times and drawn more than 500 comments, many of which questioned her faith.

“I’ve heard it all,” Splunge said. “Some people think, well, she’s not a child of God because she got the virus, or that she doesn’t know Christ and that’s why the virus touched her.”

Two weeks later, Splunge still can't shake her fever, and she hasn't seen her 2-year-old twins, who are staying with her mother, in three weeks.

Splunge wants to be tested again, but her doctor has been unable to find one, and she's horrified to see social media posts showing church gatherings and other public activity.

“In the Bible it talks about respecting your leaders,” she said. “That’s what me and my family are standing on. Just do what the officials say. Stay in your home.”