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Rep. Letlow on losing husband to COVID: "I would've given anything" for the vaccine

04 August 2021
Dan Ackermann

Rep. Julia Letlow, whose husband, Luke, died of COVID-19 in December, made an emotional, urgent plea on "CBS This Morning" for more Louisiana residents to get the coronavirus vaccine as the state faces a surge in new cases.

Driving the news: "He and I had prayed for weeks prior about the possibility of the vaccine and we were so excited that it was coming out and that it was going to be widely available," Letlow said in an interview that aired Wednesday. "And he missed it by two weeks."

  • Luke Letlow was elected to Congress in a Dec. 5 runoff election. He died from COVID-19 complications on Dec. 29, just days before he was set to be sworn in. Julia Letlow won a special election on March 20 to replace her late husband.

What she's saying: Letlow, whose state of Louisiana is experiencing an uptick of COVID-19 cases and low-levels of vaccinations, is using her husband's story to encourage residents to get the vaccine.

  • "It all happened very quickly. He was very aware and cognizant and speaking to people and then he kind of crossed over a threshold, where I started to see the color drain. And that's when it hit me that he might not come home," Letlow told CBS.
  • "I would've given anything, I would've given everything for that shot to be available to us. Looking back now, and for someone to turn it away, it's heartbreaking to me," she said.

The big picture: Louisianarecorded2,112 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Wednesday, breaking the previous record of 2,069 set on Jan. 7, according to WAFB.

  • The Louisiana Department of Health also reported 4,725 new cases and 59 new deaths.
  • About 37% of the eligible population in Louisiana has been vaccinated, per Our World in Data.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.